Count every vote

Dump rules that could disenfranchise thousands

Boulder Daily Camera October 3, 2004

Libertarian types often warn of the unintended consequences of well-intended laws.

The Help America Vote Act, or HAVA, designed and passed by Congress to allay concerns raised by the 2000 presidential election, may well turn out to be a distressing confirmation of that truism.

Besides well-publicized concerns regarding new technologies — especially electronic voting machines with no paper trail, which will be used by as many as a quarter of all voters this year — there are other complications.

One of HAVA's key components is a requirement to allow voters to cast a "provisional" ballot in cases where their registration is in doubt, they show up at the wrong precinct or fail to provide acceptable identification.

But under new provisional-balloting rules proposed by Secretary of State Donetta Davidson, thousands of Colorado voters could have their votes counted on Election Day. The rules say that people who have requested absentee ballots may not vote provisionally, and that only presidential votes — not those for U.S. Senate, statewide ballot issues or any other race — will count on provisional ballots cast by voters who go to the wrong precinct.

Davidson says denying provisional status to absentee voters is an attempt to reduce fraud and to reconcile a sloppy Colorado law with HAVA. Astonishingly, she says the presidential-vote-only rule is needed because counting all those other votes would be administratively burdensome, i.e., inconvenient.

Neither argument holds water.

First, about half of the 27,000 provisional ballots cast in 2002 were by voters who had lost or "spoiled" their absentee ballots. The practice was allowed that year, but has since been erased from the statute by the Legislature, but not replaced with new language banning it. Yet with no more than the stroke of her pen, Davidson could be disenfranchising tens of thousands of voters.

And the Secretary of State's office offers no evidence that there was a fraud problem in 2002, when 88 percent of provisional ballots were determined to be valid and counted. That's no surprise, since Colorado law dictates that all absentee ballots and precinct votes must counted before clerks may begin validating and tallying provisional ballots. That's a solid defense against fraud, and it works.

Ignoring votes for races other than for the presidency for the convenience of clerks is simply outrageous and arbitrary. Eliminating all those votes would not only partially disenfranchise thousands, but also could literally determine the outcome of the U.S. Senate and statewide issue races.

True, voters can obtain a replacement for a lost or spoiled absentee ballot. But most of those who get them in the first place (and Colorado is third in the nation in the percentage of voters who request absentee ballots) are those who live in remote areas, the elderly and disabled, and those too busy to vote on Election Day. How many of them will be able to toddle off to the county clerk's office when told on Election Day that most of their votes won't count on a provisional ballot?

Common Cause and other public-interest groups have sued to prevent the new rules from taking effect, and the case — which is being closely watched in states with similar problems — will be heard in Denver District Court on Tuesday.

We hope Judge Jeffrey Bay will toss the rules. Colorado has more than adequate protections against, and no historical problem with, voter fraud. And — sorry, all you hard-working elections officials — "administrative burden" should never, ever outweigh the fundamental right of all Americans to have all their votes counted.