Colorado boasts \u201cthe highest percentage of eligible citizens registered to vote,\u201d and its voter participation rates are \u201coften the first or second for the entire nation,\u201d Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold told Democracy Now!<\/i> in a November 2019 interview. The state\u2019s voting measures include same-day voter registration, automatic registration with driver\u2019s license services, the extension of voting rights to people on parole, and allowances for some seventeen-year-olds to vote in primary elections. As a result,\u00a0Amy Goodman reported, Colorado is \u201cconsidered an example for states needing to expand voter access at a time when Republican legislatures and statehouses across the country are attempting to suppress the vote.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado\u2019s mail-in voting system was established \u201cwith bipartisan support\u201d in 2013, Griswold explained. \u201cRepublican county clerks pushed [for] these reforms,\u201d in part because the mail-in system is more efficient and less expensive than in-person voting. The mail-in voting system also supports the state\u2019s commitment \u201cto make sure that every eligible Coloradan\u2019s voice is heard,\u201d Griswold told Democracy Now!<\/i> Although every registered, eligible voter receives a mail-in ballot, people can vote in person if they prefer to do so.<\/p>\n
In 2019 the Colorado legislature passed the Colorado Votes Act\u2014which added polling places and mail-in drop boxes throughout the state, including on the campuses of public universities and, with tribal leadership authorization, on tribal lands\u2014and the Restore Voting Rights Parolees law, which enfranchised nearly 11,500 Coloradans on parole<\/a>.<\/p>\n Colorado\u2019s voting reforms \u201cshine in stark contrast to the voter suppression we see across this country,\u201d Secretary of State Griswold told Democracy Now!<\/i><\/p>\n The COVID-19 pandemic has made mail-in voting a hot topic, especially since President Trump and other Republicans have expressed opposition to it on the spurious grounds that voting by mail is prone to fraud<\/a>. Without endorsing that stance, the New York Times<\/i> has reported skeptically on mail-in voting. For instance, an April 2020 article<\/a> noted that \u201cmany, if not most, states would face daunting financial, logistical and personnel challenges to making mail balloting the norm.\u201d<\/p>\n The<\/i> Washington Post<\/i> featured an opinion piece<\/a> by former Colorado governor John Hickenlooper, advocating for the nation to adopt a mail-in voting system modeled after Colorado\u2019s. The nation \u201ccan\u2019t afford a repeat in November\u201d of the \u201celection chaos\u201d experienced by Wisconsin voters in April, after the state\u2019s Republican legislators and Supreme Court forced voters and poll workers \u201cto risk covid-19 infection to participate in American democracy,\u201d Hickenlooper wrote. The experience of Colorado, along with Washington and Oregon, which also use mail-in voting, \u201chas laid the groundwork for just this moment, when mail-in voting in a national election could be vital to protecting Americans\u2019 health\u2014and the health of our democracy.\u201d Responding to concerns of fraud, Hickenlooper touted Colorado\u2019s use of \u201crigorous risk-limiting audits\u201d and a centralized database to verify voters\u2019 signatures, as well as perhaps the fundamental advantage of mailed ballots\u2014\u201cpaper can\u2019t be hacked,\u201d he wrote. But beyond this opinion piece, the Washington Post<\/i>\u2014like other establishment media outlets\u2014has not reported on Colorado\u2019s example as a model of expanding voter access and making elections more democratic.<\/p>\n Amy Goodman and Juan Gonz\u00e1lez, interview with Jena Griswold, \u201cColorado Has One of the Highest Voter Turnouts in the Country. Here\u2019s How They Did It,\u201d Democracy Now!<\/i>, November 5, 2019, https:\/\/www.democracynow.org\/2019\/11\/5\/colorado_mail_in_voting_voter_turnout<\/a>.<\/p>\n Student Evaluator:<\/b>\u00a0Kenzie Parker (Sonoma State University)<\/p>\n Faculty Evaluator:<\/b>\u00a0Peter Phillips (Sonoma State University)<\/p>\n The post #13. Lessons from Colorado\u2019s Voting System<\/a> appeared first on Project Censored<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n
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