More weaknesses in state's voting system

Denver Post  Editorial  12 October 2004

A Denver Post investigation found that 6,000 Colorado felons are registered to vote. Add this to questions about whether all votes will be counted this election.

With exactly three weeks until the election, and just six days before early voting begins, the secretary of state's office has 6,000 more reasons to be concerned about the integrity of this year's election.

A report in Sunday's Denver Post revealed that about 6,000 felons apparently are registered to vote in Colorado, raising critical questions about the quality and legitimacy of state voter rolls.

This is just the latest unsettling question to pop up about Colorado's election system. State rules about voter identification, absentee voting and provisional ballots have been challenged in court, and county clerks are scrambling to process thousands of new registrations in time for those voters to appear on precinct rolls.

There's growing concern that the problems could disenfranchise some voters. The mad dash now on to keep felons from voting raises new concerns.

In Colorado, felons who have done the time and are off parole can legally cast ballots. People awaiting trial can vote, too. But those who are convicted and in jail, or on parole, cannot. So, the clerks have to be meticulous when parsing the rolls.

"This is not an easy situation," Secretary of State Donetta Davidson said, twice, during Monday's emergency meeting with a few dozen county clerks.

It most certainly is not. But the situation would have been much easier had Davidson's office mailed lists of felons to county clerks at any time since she took office in 1999.

Instead, her office blames the Department of Corrections for never sending the list of felons. The prison system says it only sends it to those who ask for it.

This is Davidson's responsibility, not the DOC's. Her office routinely sends to county clerks a list of convicted federal felons. Shouldn't that have piqued someone's curiosity about a similar state list?

Voter registration in Colorado is done on the honor system, Davidson said. Until that's changed, some people who aren't allowed to vote will register and try to cast ballots.

"Either the state has to change some of their laws or we're not going to catch everyone," she said.

Davidson told clerks Monday that if there's any question about someone who may be a felon, that person should be allowed to cast a provisional ballot. After the election, registration and identification are verified before such ballots are counted.

The number of felons on voter rolls is "one more thing" that troubles Davidson about the massive voter-registration drives that have taken place across the state since last spring. More than 125,000 people have registered to vote.

Worrying about whether a state law needs to be changed, or whether there were too many voter registration drives, should come later. For now, Davidson and the 64 clerks need ensure that every legal vote counts.