Government watchdogs are calling to reform Denver’s embattled election commission.
“We have concerns about both independence and decision-making. We’re looking into options to change the way the commission runs,” said Pete Maysmith, executive director of Colorado Common Cause.
The group plans in the coming weeks to propose changes to the city’s rule allowing the mayor to appoint one of three election commissioners.
Common Cause also is looking at trying to require the city to be more consistent in its election methods.
New questions about the panel arose this month with a federal lawsuit filed by a longtime city election staffer. Fred Sandoval alleges that election commissioner Wayne Vaden called for his firing after Sandoval said the city intentionally limited turnout by changing balloting methods for the May 3 election that approved a $378 million justice center.
Susan Rogers, the elected Democrat on the commission, says she too sees a need to reform the makeup of the board.
But Sandy Adams, the elected Republican, and Mayor John Hickenlooper’s administration say nothing’s wrong with the system.
“The election commission is by charter independent from the mayor,” said mayoral spokeswoman Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, noting Hickenlooper shouldn’t be blamed for problems with a board on which he has only one appointee.
The procedures for the jail election earlier this month first came into question after commissioners changed their vote on how to conduct balloting.
On Jan. 25, commissioners voted 2-1 to conduct the city’s jail election exclusively with mail-in ballots – which historically are known to promote wider voter participation in off-year elections. Vaden, the mayor’s appointee to the board, cast the sole vote against the plan.
In a surprise move Feb. 4, commissioner Adams reversed her stance and sided with Vaden in calling instead for a traditional polling place election. That election turned out only 25 percent percent of city voters – far fewer than the nearly 44 percent who participated in November 2001, when voters rejected former Mayor Wellington Webb’s similar bond measure for a justice center.
That election was conducted exclusively with mail-in ballots.
“There’s this very firmly held belief that the lower the turnout, the higher the success rate for bond elections, although that’s not entirely borne out by the evidence,” said Mary Wickersham, an expert on Colorado election law.
“Counties often choose the format of their elections according to what they think will best affect the success and failure of bond measures,” Wickersham said.
An analysis by Denver’s Bighorn Center for Public Policy showed that using all-mail ballots in Denver’s 2001 election increased voter turnout, especially in heavily minority precincts that tend to have lower-than-average voter participation.
Critics see the election commission’s reversal in February as a play by the Hickenlooper administration to ensure a victory for the justice center this year.
The measure passed with 56 percent of the vote.
“It’s my understanding that Wayne Vaden forced a change in the vote on the mail-in ballot. One can only believe that he acted on behalf of the mayor,” said former elected election commissioner Jan Tyler.
Vaden, Adams and Hickenlooper’s spokeswoman denied the mayor played any role in the decision.
Vaden said he pushed a traditional, polling-place election not at Hickenlooper’s urging, but as a way to advance the commission’s plan to consolidate voting centers citywide.
If the election commission were any more independent of Hickenlooper’s office, Vaden added, “it may run into even more problems.”
For her part, Adams said the mayor didn’t influence her reversal.
“I make my decisions on my own,” she said.
The commission has faced other criticisms as well.
It failed to count about 2,000 absentee ballots in the 2003 municipal election.
Last fall, it was late in mailing some 30,000 absentee ballots for the 2004 general election, resulting in an untold number of Denverites not voting, even for president.
Most recently, critics complain that changing voting methods each election spreads confusion and doubt among the public.
“It’s a disservice to voters when the methods they use to vote are a moving target,” Maysmith said.
“You’ve got to have consistent behavior for people to trust the process is fair,” Tyler said.
Most Colorado counties have independently elected county clerks who run elections according to rules passed by county commissioners.
“There are days when I think that’s a better system,” said at-large Denver Councilwoman Carol Boigon, a critic of the election commission. “I think we have a lot of room for improvement.”
