Cliff Willmeng, Boulder County Fractivist

The first rule of holes is the same as the first rule of doing damage control when you botch an election – Stop Digging.  Apparently, the folks running the City and County of Broomfield could use a reminder.

Right before Thanksgiving, the Secretary of State nailed Broomfield for disenfranchising voters on an enviro-sponsored initiative to ban hydraulic fracking.  Then, a judge took the extraordinary step of decertifying the election entirely because voters, who had no business voting, were counted.  Citizens of Broomfield with every right to vote were disenfranchised.

There are also allegations of fractivist mischief galore.

But, the people calling the shots up in Broomfield are totally unrepentant about the debacle.  They are actually suing the very people who discovered the election was a mess in the first place.

From TCO:

“Controversy over Broomfield’s election took an extreme twist Wednesday when the city notified certified election watchers Mary Eberle and Marilyn Marks that they would have to defend their requests to view public records in court.

‘To the extent that we have not previously provided the documents you have requested, we will not be providing any additional documents… pending the outcome of the attached Application for Immediate Review of Public Records Request’ which was filed in the Broomfield District Court said Broomfield Clerk and Recorder Jim Candelarie in an email to Eberle and Marks…

‘The City has argued in the petition that ‘voter privacy’ remains an issue, but without in any manner explaining how that would be true,’ responded Marks to city officials.

‘There is nothing that could possibly suggest that the records are sensitive,’ said Marks who with Eberle founded Citizen Center, a nonprofit dedicated to election integrity and transparency.

‘The action the City took was clearly meant to intimidate and harass and make the election integrity advocates leave Broomfield to conceal the records they wish to keep from the public,’ declared Marks…”

Citing the average legal cost to the citizen making the document request as $50,000 to $75,000 for a CORA-review lawsuit, Eberle withdrew her document request, saying:

“I was shocked to discover the City of Broomfield took legal action to hale me into court to litigate a request I made for public documents under the provisions of (CORA).”

The public’s right to know about election shenanigans be damned!  You really have to wonder who is calling the shots in Broomfield.  There’s a new Mayor that has been elected.  Is this handy work?

Whoever it is should brush up on the first rule of holes, because it applies to managing your way through an election debacle.  Stop digging!