Sure enough, King Polis was trying to pull a fast one with his executive order to allow petition gathering for ballot issues via email addresses.
The Colorado Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down Polis’s move and sent a clear message the governor cannot simply rewrite the state’s Constitution, no matter the circumstances.
“The Colorado Constitution requires that ballot initiative petitions be signed in the presence of the petition circulator. That requirement cannot be suspended by executive order, even during a pandemic.”
Everyone uses different email addresses for home and work, not to mention the social media sock puppets who rely on numerous fake accounts to troll political candidates.
This was a terrible idea from the get-go because there is no way to verify that email addresses are attached to one single registered voter.
Polis took the court’s decision as a personal affront and responded in his usual arrogant manner.
The ruling was a blow to the people, he proclaimed, but it’s fine by him because ballot measures make his life miserable anyway.
“While today’s decision is a blow to the power of the people of our state to petition, it is certainly convenient for certain groups or elected leaders have to deal with fewer ballot initiatives,” Polis said Wednesday. “It makes my life easier as Governor that there will be fewer curveballs coming our way, but sadly it’s at the cost of making it much harder and even dangerous from a public health perspective for activists on all sides to get their issues on the ballot for voters to decide.”
Joey Bunch at Colorado Politics has the story on court decision here.