El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams’ turn in the Fox News spotlight has liberals and union bosses riled up. Even the host of the interview, Megyn Kelly, didn’t seem to buy Williams’ logic that one of the problems with Colorado’s mail-in ballots is that it gives union bosses in voters’ homes the chance to influence the election.
“There are some Coloradans who prefer not to get a ballot mailed to them because there might be someone in the household, a union boss, an employer, who intimidates them once they get that ballot,” Williams, the Republican nominee for secretary of state, said on Tuesday night’s
“They would prefer to just have the ability to go into a polling place. They can go into a polling place now but if they’ve already cast that mail ballot, if someone has influenced them and they cast it already, they don’t have the ability to go into a pristine polling place in which no one can influence them.”
Democrats passed an election law last year — without a single Republican vote in the statehouse — that sends a ballot to every registered voter, even those who haven’t voted in awhile. The option to vote by mail has been around since 1992, and in the 2012 general election about 73 percent of voters did so by mail. Those uncomfortable about voting by mail still have the option to go to a voting center in their county and cast their ballot in person.
Williams said this morning that he based his remarks on his experience running elections and closely following the legislative process that led to passage of the election law.
“The vast majority of Coloradans like to receive their ballots in the mail, but some don’t,” he said. “During the passage of 1303 (the new election law) last year there was specific testimony in the legislature from individuals who had people come to their house in an effort to persuade, to intimidate them to vote a particular way.
“We certainly had people express to us they would prefer not to receive one, and they preferred to go to a polling place, and I think people should have that right. I don’t understand why someone wouldn’t want people to have a right as to how they receive their ballot.”
Democrats, the Colorado AFL-CIO and national liberal blogs are feasting on the Williams’ union-boss theory, no doubt for political points by some ahead of Tuesday’s election. Even Kelly, though, questioned whether union bosses amounted to more than “a sliver” of the population. Kelly, in part of the interview, corrected her recent remark on her show that Coloradans could print out a ballot at home. “That, actually, is not the case,” she said Tuesday night. Members of the military and Colorado residents voting from overseas have that option.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics union members make up 7.6 percent of wage or salary earners in Colorado in 2013. That’s below the national average of 11.3 percent. It’s not clear how many people in that percentage would qualify as a “union boss.” Organizers and shop stewards usually serve dozens of people in their immediate orbits at work, and union officers can represent anywhere from a few dozen to several thousand members. As a member of the Denver Newspaper Guild, I can report that it’s a struggle to find people to serve in any leadership role.
“Williams owes every working family in the state an apology. Colorado workers are independent-minded, they do their research and how they vote is their decision,” Cindy Kirby, president of the Colorado AFL-CIO who is also a shop steward, legislative and political liaison, editor, and arbitration advocate for the National Association of Letter Carriers.
“Their employers or their union would never commit the type of ridiculous fraud that Williams has alleged without presenting any facts. His comments are designed to intimidate working families and discredit a legitimate method of voting. We don’t need people who attempt to intimidate voters like Wayne Williams running our state elections.”
State Democratic Party Chairman Rick Palacio also took exception with the Republican candidate’s example of untoward influence as a part of an effort to undermine the mail-ballot system.
“Williams has gone against the majority of county clerks and the County Clerks Association in opposing the election laws passed in 2013 that provide mail-in ballots to every voter,” Palacio said. “Now he is trying to undermine the law with ridiculous claims. Wayne Williams is using scare tactics to try and win this election.”
Democrats’ main argument against Williams’ candidacy for state office is that he’s partisan, mostly because he sided with Secretary of Scott Gessler in opposing the new voting laws last year. Williams also is the former chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party.
In an and said he’s worked well with lots of Republicans and would continue to as secretary of state.
