Donetta Davidson
Executive Director Donetta Davidson this week announced that she is stepping down as executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association on June 30.
Davidson is a former secretary of state who has spent more than 40 years working with county clerks and elections officials in Colorado. She joined the CCCA in January of 2010 and in that time worked on legislation that created Colorado’s mail-delivery voting system and preserved in-person voting sites; oversaw the organization’s education and outreach efforts, including launch of the website MyColoradoVote.com; kept tabs on bills as they moved through the legislature; and organized the clerks’ biannual meetings.
“The workload for clerks is heavier than itap ever been,” she said, in a news release announcing her departure. “They are all doing more with less as they deal with requirements of federal law and Colorado law, which in turn requires more from the executive director of the association.”
The Colorado County Clerks Association is a non-governmental entity whose members consist of 64 county clerks of Colorado and their designees.
Davidson stressed that the job — and organization — is non-partisan.
“As a clerk, and by turn as the head of their association, you’re serving every voter, and you follow the law. Itap very hard, and at times people aren’t happy with you, but in the end itap very rewarding.”
The Clerks Association has launched a search for Davidson’s successor and is encouraging interested candidates to apply. Details can be found at: http://www.clerkandrecorder.org/home/executive-director
Davidson said experience in a county clerks office or familiarity with elections would be helpful qualifications for whomever succeeds her, but honesty and the ability to develop one-on-one relationships in the sometimes contentious world of politics will also be critical.
Davidson’s work with county clerks began in Bent County in 1972, as a part-timer who filled in for employees on vacation before being hired on full time. She served was Bent County Clerk from 1978 to 1986. In 1986, she was hired as the state’s Director of Elections, a position she held until 1994, when she was elected Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder. She wad elected Secretary of state in 1998, and served in that office until 2005.
She was appointed by President Bush as a commissioner to the federal Election Assistance Commission from 2005-10. The EAC was a created as a result of problems in Florida during the 2000 presidential election. The commission distributed money for states to by equipment, certified of voting systems through lab testing and worked with NIST on writing voting standards.
