After the clumsy nature of last year’s election preparations, there is mounting concern about the Denver Election Commission’s ability to execute a smooth course of balloting. Amid calls to scrap the decades-old panel, you’d think the commission would move smartly to put its best foot forward.
To the contrary. The commission has ignored invitations to testify before the City Council and lay out its plans for the important November 2005 election.
Elections manager Karon Hatchett told Post reporter Karen Crummy that no insult was intended in the commission’s decision to brush off the council.
“The commission is prepared,” Hatchett said. “It’s business as usual.”
We hope not. In the 2004 general election, 40 percent of all reported voting problems in Colorado were in Denver, and 13,000 absentee ballots were not mailed out on schedule. Also, the commission abruptly dropped plans for an all-mail vote for the May 3 election on the $378 million criminal justice complex in favor of more expensive precinct voting. Confusion reigns. Last month, the commission scrapped a plan to use voting centers for November and returned to traditional precinct voting. Mail ballots and voting centers are considered effective for increasing voter turnout.
Unlike all other Colorado counties, where elections are overseen by elected county clerks, Denver has a three-member commission consisting of the mayor’s appointed city clerk and two elected commissioners. The system was created near the turn of the 20th century because the city’s politics were corrupt. Sadly, yesterday’s progressive reform has morphed into today’s dysfunctional structure.
Mayor John Hickenlooper’s liaison to the City Council, Happy Haynes, attributes the failure of City Clerk Wayne Vaden, Commissioners Sandy Adams and Susan Rogers and elections head Hatchett to meet with the council to “miscommunication.”
Council president Rosemary Rodriguez and public watchdog group Common Cause are drafting a charter amendment to have an elected clerk assume the Election Commission duties. The mayor shares Rodriguez’s concerns but is concerned about taking non-election functions out of the executive branch, Haynes said, so it’s been suggested that Rodriguez “consider making the proposal only address the election … functions.”
The administration and City Council should reform a system that is clearly in need of fixing. First things first. It’s imperative to safeguard the Nov. 1 election.
