http://www.denverpost.com/news...
Common Cause of Colorado, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and the Service Employees International Union sued Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, alleging that his office had violated the National Voter Registration Act by illegally purging about 31,000 eligible voters from the rolls 90 days before the election.
The state insists the actual number is smaller.
The plaintiffs had asked Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr. for a preliminary injunction that by Tuesday would reinstate voters who had been removed from the rolls. They also asked Kane to order the state to stop removing people until after the election.
Just before Kane was set to rule on the matter, the plaintiffs and the secretary of state's office reached an agreement.
Before the two sides reached an agreement, Kane indicated that he was weighing the impact of making a decision.
"I think there are places where the state went out of bounds on removal of these names," he said, "but at the same time, what I am concerned with primarily is trying to balance the equities so that I am not creating more harm."
The morning after the election, the state will generate a list of voters who were removed from the rolls since May 14 and send it to county clerks and the groups' attorneys for review.
The state then will order that the voters on the list who voted by provisional ballot will be verified before other provisional ballots that have been cast.
"Voters on the list shall be presumed to be eligible and their ballots will be counted," the agreement says. "Only upon a showing by clear and convincing evidence that a voter is not eligible shall a provisional ballot be rejected by the county."
So what does that mean? Basically, it means that these voters that would have been disallowed as provisional, shall be counted separately as valid after the election, so that in the case of a close election, these votes will be counted first and counted as valid.
So Coffman's ludicrous ruling to use a checkbox rule
to disenfranchise voters who used a valid form of identification, i.e. their Social Security number, was overturned.
Great news for us here in Colorado. But as for Mike Coffman, I am staying on the offensive. He has been an A-1 hypocrite in this process.
How hypocritical? Read from the Rocky Mountain News' endorsement for Coffman for Secretary of State in 2006, which he later used for his campaign commercials:
In many years, it might not matter much who is elected Colorado secretary of state. The position typically calls for an administrator who can effectively handle the processing of government documents and the like. "Vision" doesn't seem to be a requirement for the job.
But 2006 is different, as anyone who's paid attention to the controversy surrounding the certification of voting machines can attest. The next secretary of state needs to regain the public's trust in the reliability of the technologies used to tabulate ballots.
A major in the U.S. Marines, Coffman took a leave of absence as treasurer to help organize and oversee elections in Iraq.
Anyone who can pull off an election while literally under fire deserves a serious look at running elections here. We hope voters agree, and elect Coffman secretary of state.
Yes, he actually ran on being a person who was experienced at administering elections and ensuring votes. Instead, he has operated as a partisan and disenfranchising voters.
His moves as the Secretary of State have been so unpopular, that he is re-running his Congressional ads, even though it is a 'safe' Republican seat. (the past few nights he has been advertising on Rachel Maddow in the Denver market, even tonight while Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter was on RM to comment on the ruling)
I am encouraging you to give to his democratic opponent, Hank Eng, who as of late, has received some good polling news.
Go to Hank's Website here.
On Hank
Hank's commitment to public service began in 1972 as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, Africa, spending three years as a water development engineer. To continue his work in Africa, Hank accepted a position with the State Department's U.S. Agency for International Development and stayed in Africa for another eight years as a project engineer. It was an experience that reinforced Hank's belief that hard work and determination will always help people reach their maximum potential.
(hattip to the first person who can get the Rachel Maddow youtube of CO-Gov. Bill Ritter discussing the ruling)
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