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Election Fraud In Colorado

August 4, 2004

The Colorado Secretary of State appears to be finally catching on to an old trick. She probably missed the Wall Street Journal article on how this same thing was done in South Dakota in 2002.

Perhaps Tracy Baker's mentor (see Doofus Too Dumb To Quit), Donetta Davidson, should read the Chicago Rules of Election Fraud so she understands how these things are done? [Note that Donetta Davidson subsequently became chair of the Election Assistance Commission.]

I've added a few gratuitous comments of my own (in square brackets [ ] ) to illustrate just how abysmally naive and ignorant these election officials are. Worse yet, by 2006 under HAVA we will move to a statewide voter registration database developed by Bermuda-based Accenture (son of Arthur Anderson of Enron infamy) [see Accenture — Epitome Of Incompetence]. No one has any idea how such errors will be caught after that. But it sure will be easy to disenfranchise voters then.

Must our election system(?) collapse completely before election officials realize there are major problems?

Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.

Possible voter fraud has Attorney General's office on hunt

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Reproduced under the Fair Use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use.

August 4, 2004 — State prosecutors are investigating possible fraud involving suspicious voter registration forms filed in at least three metro Denver counties.

Secretary of State Donetta Davidson asked Attorney General Ken Salazar to look into the matter after county clerks reported irregularities in voter registration forms and some voters complained that their party registrations had been changed without their consent. [The district attorney in El Paso County, Colorado, routinely ignores these complaints from our county clerk.]

"To my knowledge, this is the first time we've ever experienced anything like this," said [incredibly naive] Adams County Clerk and Recorder Carol Snyder, who reported up to 60 applications "that had nonexistent addresses and looked like they were signed by the same person."

Salazar's staff confirmed Tuesday that "the investigation concerns an allegation of improper registration of a couple hundred of voters in Denver, Arapahoe and Douglas counties, and that the investigation is active."

Davidson said the probe, launched in June, marks the first time during her five years as secretary of state that she has turned over a voter fraud investigation to state prosecutors. [She has routinely ignored and denied multiple requests by CAMBER for such investigations.]

In Denver, election officials noticed several voter registration forms that bore seemingly identical signatures and showed unusual numbers of people registering from the same address. [See the nursing home procedure, no. 3 in the Chicago Rules of Election Fraud.]

"It was some place on Inca Street, that's all I know," said Denver election commission spokesman Alan McBeth.

Arapahoe County officials also reported a "bunch" of forms with "questionable addresses or signatures." [Apparently SoS Donetta Davidson's old office hasn't improved much even though her clone, Tracy Baker, called a Doofus Too Dumb Too Quit, has been tossed out.]

"We want a credible election with voters who are eligible to vote," said Clerk and Recorder Nancy Doty.

On July 29, the Jefferson County's election office received about 40 applications with only eight different names. In each case, multiple, identical registration forms — same address, same date of birth, etc. — were filled out for a single name.

Clerk and Recorder Faye Griffin said the duplicates could be a prank or the result of a mistake — though she finds it hard to believe somebody could have forgotten so many times in such a short span that they already registered to vote. [Gee, not all citizens operate at her level of intelligence.]

"We don't know if it's the same person or if it's someone sitting there looking through a phone book and signing," she said. "We don't know what the investigation will entail, but we've forwarded all those on to the secretary of state."

Many of the applications in question came from voter registration drives. Davidson did not characterize who organized those drives or with what party the questionable applications sought to register.

Despite Douglas County's inclusion in the investigation, Clerk and Recorder Carole Murray said her office has not received any questionable voter registrations and has not turned any over to the secretary of state. [At least that they were smart enough to recognize.]

Davidson alluded to the probe at a news conference Tuesday, when she projected turnout in next Tuesday's primary election will be as high as 35 percent. That compares with 10 percent turnout in the 2000 primary and 11 percent in 2002.

"It's a controversial election year, and there's heightened voter awareness," Davidson said. [Donetta is noted for stating the obvious.]

The August 10^th primary includes the close race between beer executive Pete Coors and former U.S. Rep. Bob Schaffer for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, and the contest between Salazar and Colorado Springs educator Mike Miles for the Democratic nomination. It also will decide who becomes district attorney in several judicial districts with candidates representing only one party.

Early voting is underway throughout the state until Friday. Because of new state and federal laws, voters will be required to show identification at the polls. First-time voters who registered by mail but didn't send photocopies of their IDs will be required to do so, Davidson noted.

Voters who show up at polling places without IDs or without their names on registration lists will be allowed to cast special, "provisional" ballots. County clerks have 12 days to verify and count those ballots. So the outcome of close races may not be made public until August 22 or even August 25, county clerks' deadline to certify election results. [No requirement to prove voters are actually US citizens is in place, however. A utility bill will do for ID.]

In 2002, it took a month to learn the outcome of the race between Republican Bob Beauprez and Democrat Mike Feeley for Colorado's 7^th Congressional District seat. After a legal challenge and a recount, Beauprez won by 121 votes. [No mention is made of the debacle in Garfield County that occurred in the November 2003 election and documented by the SoS's office.]

The Democratic and Republican parties both are organizing teams of poll watchers and lawyers to monitor next week's primary and the November 2, 2004, general election.

Staff writer Susan Greene can be reached at sgreene@denverpost.com.

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Issues The Equal Justice Foundation Deals With

| Prohibition & War On Drugs | Vote Fraud & Election Issues |