Pueblo voters for a day?
An explosive story by Valerie Richardson in The Colorado Observer yesterday has created some serious concerns about the integrity of the upcoming recall elections of Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron.
Due to a bill sponsored by Senator Giron herself, HB1303, voters no longer have to be residents of the district they vote in…they only have to have the intention of someday becoming residents.
The recall races are the first elections the bill will impact.
Per Valerie Richardson:
DENVER—Let’s say you live in Boulder, but you really want to vote in the Sept. 10 recall election of Senate President John Morse in Colorado Springs.
Impossible? Under Colorado’s new election law, maybe not. Just show up at a Voter Service and Polling Center in Colorado Springs on or before Election Day, and tell the staffers that you intend to move to Morse’s Senate District 11.
As long as you’ve lived somewhere in Colorado for the past 22 days—even if you don’t actually live in the district—there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to cast a ballot, said Douglas County Clerk and Recorder Jack Arrowsmith.
Under the newly passed Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act, “the only residency requirement for voters is that they have to live anywhere in Colorado for the last 22 days,” said Arrowsmith, now serving his seventh year as county clerk. “It poses some interesting questions.”
What’s more, even if you never move to Senate District 11, you haven’t actually committed a crime under the new law, as long as you vote only once per election, he said.
As recall elections tend to be very low-turnout affairs, any sort of electoral shenanigans could have an outsized impact on the races.
Unfortunately, this past legislative session was filled with sloppily written legislation, from the gun bills to this election reform monstrosity.
Governor Hickenlooper was infamously forced to add an unprecedented signing statement to a number of gun bills, as the language in the bills was so poorly drafted the magazine ban could have ended up banning virtually all ammunition magazines.
Was HB1303 another incident of lazy and incompetent legislating or did Democrats open the door wide on election fraud?
The story was written by Valerie Richardson in The Colorado Observer, do try to keep up Mr. ProgressNow Colorado.
http://www.coloradogopwomen.org/maps/2013-senate-districts
The state of CO also has one, but the gop women one is a bit easier to use.
Charles Heatherly Sure, someone could fraudulently register in a district they don't live in, if they choose to commit felony voter fraud.
With our Sec State supposedly on high alert for fraud (even though he has not found a single verified voter fraud case in his 3 years in office), that would be a singularly stupid thing to do. I know that you all think all liberals are corrupt, and the County Clerks are aiding and abetting them, but that's just your paranoid world view, and not based in lived reality.
When Republicans show up in Pueblo to try this and get busted for voter fraud, I hope Peak Politics will put up their bail money. This is really one of the dumbest things I've read this year.
Kim, maybe you should read the new elections law before making categorical statments like that….mail ballots are SENT to all registered voters in the ditrict, BUT anyone can show up at a polling center and declare they "intend" to reside in the district, and under the language of the law, if they can show they have been a resident of Colorado — not the district– for 22 days, they will be given a ballot.
Ballots for the recall election will be mailed Aug 19 to voters in Senate District 3 (for Giron). Those are the only people who can vote in the recall election. Period, full stop. No Boulder voters. No Gypsy voters. Stop already with the conspiracy theories.
This got me to thinking….and now I've spent over an hour trying to determine if I'm in District 2 or 7? I've seen maps that say both. I know some boundary lines changes in 2011….so it's even more confusing. Can anyone direct me to a site that has current DETAILED boundary lines? thanks
Holy….. Well, this is what we get with so many naive, unthinking, never question anything they are told people eligible to vote. We no longer have a democracy. The 'new nobility' have managed to take over completely. Too many people who are happy to be 'serfs' and just assume that their 'leaders' will do the best for them – which means their 'leaders' can do whatever suits them best instead. ('Leaders' in quotes because they were intended to be 'representatives' way back in the times when Americans were not spineless, ignorant, sheep.
Of course it's fraud, that is the way they operate effin liberals will do anything to trash the constitution.