DENVER—U.S citizens are among those who received letters from Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler questioning their right to vote, the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday.
The ACLU’s Colorado branch said the voters are among the nearly 4,000 people to whom Gessler sent letters this month asking that they voluntarily withdraw their registration or prove their citizenship.
The ACLU provided three names of people who are naturalized citizens, from Canada, Venezuela and Germany. The ACLU says “a couple of dozen” voters have contacted them.
Democrats have criticized Gessler, a Republican, for sending the letters and have questioned his political motivations in a state that’s expected to be a presidential battleground.
“Mr. Gessler has no business intimidating model, law-abiding citizens living and working in Colorado with his letter that risks discouraging voters from exercising their right to vote,” Denise Maes, ACLU public policy director, said in a statement.
Gessler’s office sent the letters to registered voters suspected of being ineligible to vote because they presented documents showing that they were not citizens, such as a green card, when applying for a driver’s license. Some then later appeared in voter rolls, Gessler said.
Gessler said he is using a federal database, which is also in use in Florida, that will allow him to verify the status of people who have since become citizens after getting their driver’s license with a green card or other immigration document.
Rich Coolidge, a Gessler spokesman, said the revelation that some U.S. citizens are among those who received letters was not unexpected.
“We absolutely knew that folks would have been naturalized since showing proof of non-citizenship. We also knew that other voters may not yet have been naturalized,” he said in an email. “We have safeguards in place and have only removed voters who voluntarily withdrew their registration.”
Gessler’s office is having a hearing Wednesday to talk about a process for those who don’t respond.
The vast majority of registered voters who received letters were Democrats or independent voters. Of the nearly 4,000 letters, 1,566 went to Democrats, and 1,794 went to unaffiliated voters. Another 486 letters were sent to Republicans.
Coolidge said election officials did not look at voter registration when sending the letters.
