Secretary of State Mike Coffman incorrectly decertified the electronic voting machines used by Denver and Arapahoe County, said Denver Clerk and Recorder Stephanie O’Malley on Tuesday.
In a meeting with a committee of the Denver City Council on Tuesday, O’Malley also relayed that Coffman had told her he would probably certify the machines if she appealed his decision.
O’Malley said Coffman telephoned her on Jan. 2 to tell her he no longer had concerns about the machines in use in Denver.
“He believed there was an error made that led to decertification of those machines,” O’Malley said.
Officials with the vendor, Sequoia Voting Systems, said they had subsequently proved that testing data had been mailed that Coffman’s office originally thought hadn’t been received. They also said they fixed a software glitch that had been one of the top reasons behind Coffman’s decision to decertify.
Regardless, Coffman can’t simply recertify the machine.
“That has to be submitted through the appeal process, and all interested parties will have a right to give testimony at a public hearing required by statute,” Coffman said later Tuesday.
Still, his telephone call has some voting activists up in arms, worried that he is bypassing an appeal process prescribed by law.
The call to O’Malley followed Coffman’s announcement last month that he had found electronic voting machines in use in 53 counties across the state too unreliable for use. The announcement threw Colorado’s August primary and presidential elections into turmoil.
Denver, using federal funds, purchased 240 Sequoia Edge II voting machines in 2006 for $1.3 million. Coffman’s December ruling decertified those machines.
Sequoia also supplies machines to Arapahoe, Elbert and Pueblo counties.
O’Malley said that based on her conversation with Coffman, she believes Denver will be able to use its machines. She plans to make them available to the disabled and encourage paper ballots for other voters.
She said she fears all-mail balloting, which has been advocated by the Colorado County Clerks Association, would disenfranchise too many voters who prefer to come to the polls.
In an interview with the Denver Post editorial board Tuesday, Gov. Bill Ritter said the state should work quickly toward finding an election format that will give voters confidence that their vote was recorded and counted accurately. And he said that whatever the plan, everybody should more or less do the same thing: “We believe some uniformity should be a part of that.”
He did put a little weight behind the clerks’ association proposal.
“The best idea on the table right now is an all-mail ballot,” Ritter said, as long as there are certified optical-scan machines to count ballots, electronic voting machines for the disabled and places where people can drop off a ballot or fill out a new one if theirs got lost in the mail.
While Denver officials are pleased with the news out of Coffman’s office, word of his call to O’Malley drew a quick rebuke from Paul Hultin, the lead lawyer of a lawsuit that prompted a judge last year to order the state to overhaul its voting machine certification.
“It’s inappropriate for him to step outside the formal process, and it’s highly inappropriate that he make suggestions that somebody should do something because this is how he would come out on it,” he said.
Coffman said he “jumped the gun” but he wants to ensure that activists still will get a chance to weigh in with concerns about the machines.
He said Sequoia had convinced him the machines would not pose problems to voters.
Steven Bennett, a sales executive for Sequoia, criticized Colorado’s certification process as unwieldy in an appearance Tuesday before Denver City Council members.
Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com
