Election commission draws flak

Voter advocates criticize November mail-in ballot plan

April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News

Published June 10, 2005 at midnight

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Voter advocates accused the Denver Election Commission on Thursday of bowing to pressure from Colorado lawmakers to hold a mail-in ballot election in November to bolster turnout for two measures aimed at lifting state spending limits.

The election commission is considering scrapping its initial plan to set up voting center sites in November, where any registered voter could cast a ballot.

"They have offered no plausible reason for their reversal," said Lynn Pressnall, a Denver precinct co-captain. "I'm still not convinced this is honest, ethical and not bending to outside pressure based on the content of the ballot."

The criticism came a day after the commission met to begin discussing the format of the November election. It is expected to make a final decision June 23.

Election commission officials say they are not bending to political pressure by framing the election in a way that would increase voter turnout for two state budget-related measures, Referendums C and D.

The first measure will ask voters to lift spending limits for five years to help the state cover a projected budget shortfall of $2 billion.

The second measure would allow legislators to use some of that money to borrow cash to repair crumbling roads and schools.

"We don't manipulate elections," said Commissioner Susan Rogers. "The one thing we learned in May in doing the test on vote centers is that the more time we take to design the process, and the more time we take to educate the public . . . the better off we will be."

The commission initially planned to conduct a voter center election in November based on the assumption that surrounding counties planned to do the same, said Commissioner Sandy Adams.

Now, she said, they are being told that most metro-area counties will conduct an all mail-in ballot election.

"It will be to Denver's disadvantage to stick its neck out in November," Adams said. "There's not enough money on this planet that can totally communicate to every Denver voter the change to the election format that comes with voting centers.

"We will need to take advantage of the earned media that hopefully comes from many counties using the new form of election simultaneously."

State Sen. Ken Gordon, D-Denver, is pushing the election commission to shelve the vote center concept until the August 2006 primary.

He argues that holding such an election in November would hurt voter turnout because residents are not yet used to the concept of voting in at least 40 centralized locations throughout the city.

"You'll have people going to their old polling places and not be able to vote," Gordon said. "I've been an advocate of getting as large of a voter turnout as possible in every election since I've been involved in politics, regardless of the content of the vote."

Critics recently accused the election commission of attempting to reduce voter turnout for the May 3 justice center election when it reversed its initial decision to hold a mail-ballot election. Voters went to the polls instead.

Justice center opponents say the decision was made after Mayor John Hickenlooper's office twisted the commission's arm - a charge the mayor's office says is not true.

"It's interesting to witness the suppression and acceleration of voter turnout, depending on who's pulling the strings," said Christie Donner, co-campaign manager of a coalition that opposed the justice center.

Karon Hatchett, executive director of the election commission, dismisses such assertions.

She said there was not enough time to conduct a proper mail-in ballot for the May election.

Such an endeavor requires that the election commission scan the signatures of Denver's 300,000 registered voters into a database for voter verification purposes. The process takes at least 60 days.

The commission plans to hire an additional 25 temporary workers at a cost of $116,160 to complete the signature scanning project by November, making it possible to conduct a mail-in ballot election.

washingtonam@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5086

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