DENVER—The state attorney general’s office sided with the secretary of state on Tuesday, ruling that election officials are allowed to remove duplicate registrations from voter rolls within 90 days of the election.
The informal opinion comes a week after The New York Times and a watchdog group raised questions about whether Colorado and other states illegally removed voters from the rolls recently. Secretary of State Mike Coffman insisted then that election officials had done nothing wrong and requested a review from the office of state Attorney General John Suthers.
Coffman’s office said 2,454 records had been canceled since Aug. 1, within three months of the election, because they were duplicates. Coffman said a total of 14,049 records have been canceled since July 21, including 6,572 people who moved and 1,145 people who died.
The Times estimated that a total of 37,000 voters had been taken off the rolls in the three weeks following July 21.
In the opinion released Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer said the state’s new computer registration system can detect and notify clerks of multiple or duplicate registrations. He said clerks can review this and delete all entries for the person except for the most recent registration. He said that is different from removing voters who are believed to be ineligible to vote who may in fact be eligible.
“The deletion of all but the most recent registration does not prevent the voter from voting. The removal merely ensures that the voter will not receive or cast multiple ballots,” Knaizer concluded.
The opinion only addresses whether duplicate voters can be removed from the rolls within 90 days of the election, not whether other kinds of voters are being incorrectly removed.
State Democratic Party Chairwoman Pat Waak said she wasn’t surprised that Suthers would back Coffman, a fellow Republican.
“We hope this is the end of the concerted GOP effort to deny voters their rights and to create obstacles to voter participation when Coloradans are eager for change,” she said in a written statement.
Coffman’s spokesman, Rich Coolidge, defended the decision to remove the duplicates.
“It’s important that one voter doesn’t get more than one ballot,” he said.
In the opinion, Knaizer wrote that the 1993 federal law known as the “motor voter” act requires states to make a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters, including those who have died or moved or have failed to respond to notices after not voting in two federal elections. They are not allowed to systematically remove these voters within 90 days of the election. Knaizer also said that the 2002 Help America Vote Act requires that each state maintain a single computerized registration list and remove duplicate names.
People can verify online that they are registered by visiting .
