A plan to hold primarily paper-ballot elections this year in Colorado crumbled Wednesday amid fears over money and feasibility.
Shortly after legislative leaders at the Capitol withdrew their support for the plan, Gov. Bill Ritter said the $11 million that had been pledged for a paper-ballot election will be used for other purposes.
“It’s deader than a doornail,” said Senate Minority Leader Andy McElhany, a Colorado Springs Republican who had been a co-sponsor of the bill.
The apparent collapse leaves Colorado’s elections effectively where they were three months ago, before Secretary of State Mike Coffman decertified many of the voting machines in the state and lawmakers scrambled to find a way to hold an election.
Coffman has since retested and recertified all the machines. That, combined with withering opposition from Coffman and the majority of the state’s county clerks, was enough to apparently topple a plan that once had the backing of leaders in both chambers as well as the governor.
“The environment in which we talked about committing to a paper ballot statewide was different,” Ritter said. “… Ultimately I think we are (now) in a place where the people of Colorado can be sure the system works.”
The bill that outlined the paper-ballot plan, Senate Bill 189, is scheduled to be heard this morning in the Senate Appropriations Committee. Senate Majority Leader Ken Gordon, a Denver Democrat who is the bill’s primary champion, said he still supports it.
“The bill is up tomorrow, and I’m going to ask people to vote for it,” he said Wednesday afternoon.
But he acknowledged that the money attached to it had disappeared, and a majority of appropriations committee members have said they would not vote for the bill without adequate funding.
“We should let those who run the elections run the elections,” said Sen. Ted Harvey, a Highlands Ranch Republican who is on the committee. “Legislators should let them do their job.”
But voting activists, who say the machines are fraught with errors, were stunned Wednesday. Al Kolwicz, with the Colorado Voter Group, sent an e-mail to appropriations committee members pleading, “Please find a way to vote YES on SB 189.”
Paul Hultin, an attorney whose successful 2006 lawsuit against the state brought about the voting-machine recertifications, said he will soon meet with voting activists to decide what to do next. He and others have not ruled out a lawsuit, which Gordon has said could succeed and bring further elections mayhem.
“That’s a sad day for Colorado when the legislature cannot recognize or pay attention to the scientific consensus that (voting) machines are unreliable and insecure and have been discredited across the country,” Hultin said.
Ritter said changes made to the machines and to the recertification process better insulate Colorado from a lawsuit this time around.
McElhany said, in the end, restoring the status quo was the most lawmakers could do.
“It’s the best way to resolve the issue,” he said. “Nobody can agree on anything else.”
Wednesday’s news was seen as a major victory for many county clerks, who have been lobbying the legislature with warnings of chaos if the paper-ballot plan succeeded. The clerks said they did not have enough time, money or expertise to implement a mostly paper-ballot election.
They said they trust their embattled electronic voting terminals, which they will now be able to use widely. Some counties, such as Denver, still plan to use paper ballots, though.
“This is great news,” said Mesa County Clerk Janice Rich. “I think it’s a win for the voters of Colorado.”
John Ingold: 303-954-1068 or jingold@denverpost.com
