Posted on 01/09/2014 9:32:51 AM PST by real saxophonist
I’m not going to jail, at least not for voting. That means good news for me, and a chance to keep Coloradans’ trust in our election results, but only if the new General Assembly is willing to act on the terrible election law passed last year.
While anti-gun legislation dominated the media during the last Colorado legislative session, the most dangerous bill passed was a revamp of our voting laws. Thanks to House Bill 1303, Colorado is now the poster child for sloppy election law. Not only does a cable TV or phone bill serve as a valid form of voter identification, but we’re also the only state in the country that has both all mail-in ballots and same-day voter registration.
Under the new law our ballots, including yours, are flung through the mail like grocery-store coupons, whether you want them delivered that way to you or not. As the news site CompleteColorado.com reported, ballots in the last election were readily found in trash cans and apartment mail rooms, just ready to be harvested.
But even more disturbing, the new law legalizes moving voters around on Election Day to the district where their votes are most needed. Now someone who merely “intends” to move into a different district can vote in that district on Election Day. Imagine a voter shell-game with the winner controlling government.
And get this — any enforcement of “voter fraud,” if it’s even possible to catch it, happens AFTER the ballots are all counted and recorded. With same-day voter registration the vagabond voter is handed a ballot at the polling place. He registers and votes right there and then. His ballot goes into the ballot box, and there’s no way to yank it back out.
The result? The winners of future elections in Colorado will be the campaigns that have the most buses.
To prove that very point, I personally “moved” from my long-time home in Boulder to Colorado Springs and cast a ballot in the John Morse recall election last September. I then “moved” back to Boulder shortly afterward. Morse backers and supporters of the new law immediately filed legal complaints against me for voter fraud.
Citing the “ambiguities” in HB 1303, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office announced that, after a three-month investigation, a criminal prosecution against me is “not warranted or viable.” This announcement came as a surprise to no one who actually read the law.
To the consternation of many, including a few of my Independence Institute co-workers, it looks like I won’t be going to jail anytime soon.
But all this proves a simple point: It is now legal to move voters around like chess pieces during elections to places where their votes can be most leveraged. It’s not just pot that’s now legal; voter mischief is the law of the land in Colorado.
It’s my hope that the legislature and Gov. John Hickenlooper will quickly repeal this obscene same-day registration law. If they don’t, we all have the responsibility to learn of all our new voter rights and exercise them fully.
I’m looking forward to the Great Election Migration of 2014. After all, you now have the right to vote in the hottest Congressional race in the country between Mike Coffman and Andrew Romanoff. Even if you don’t live in that district, why wouldn’t you?
We didn’t write the new voting rules; our Denver-centric Legislature did. HB 1303 gave us easily the worst voting laws in the country. But damn it, these are the new rules of electioneering. Like it or not, they are the official rules of the game. So we better use them. You better use your new voting “rights.” Others, especially those who wrote them, certainly will.
Jon Caldara is president of the Independence Institute, a free market think tank in Denver
I hear the whole state smells like a dorm room now.
As a woman, I am not allowed to touch the ballots when they come in the mail, here in Washington State. My husband, who knows best, does my voting for me. He says that mail in ballots are the best thing to happen to Washington, since that allows husbands to do their wives voting for them. Thanks to voting by mail, that is one thing I don’t have to worry my pretty little head about, according to hubby.
US election laws are the envy of tin pot dictators worldwide.
You don't suppose that the Democrat legislature and governor actually wanted this kind of outcome when they wrote and signed the bill, do you?
You're a Democrat working in a Republican-dominated region? Or vice-versa? Just fail to deliver a few ballots being mailed to your customers. Not too many, just a few at random. Odds are, they are going to voters for the party you don't like.
Or, when they are mailed back, purloin a few and drop them in a handy shredder.
If you don't have the advantage of working in a neighborhood with leanings different from your own, you can "target" your "lost ballots" pretty easily: In the 2 months preceding the election, pay attention to which voters are getting which political mailings. Republicans tend to get lots of GOP circulars, Democrat voters tend to get Donkey Talk. So just "lose" the ballots of whichever group you happen to disagree with.
If you don't work for the Post Office, no worries. You can still screw things up by voting the ballots of your wife or your hippie daughter away at college, or your other marijuana-smoking offspring (it's likely you already have samples of their signatures lying around). Or, get to the mailbox first and just throw them away. Your college kid is probably double or triple-voting anyway.
There are dumb people and then there are Colorado Democrats, who are in a class by themselves.
And that's a problem because....
Because we need more voters who respond to gooey-gooshy appeals to emotion and emotive imagery, to superheated appeals to "it's for the chill-run!" and similar monuments to democracy.
And, of course, to WICS and AFDC and SSI and other handouts historically aimed at the women's vote.
I know a couple of FReeper women who actually have concluded the Republic would be better off if women turned in their voting cards and gave up the franchise, because of all the damage that has been done using appeals to women.
You have rights it is your choice to be run over and not stand up for them.
I do, but I can't help thinking that is weird, and are any Washington familes out there stealing each other's ballots. I was being facetious with my comment to make a point about what could really be happening in real abusive relationships, gay lovers, abusive wives, girlfriends, too.
I knew you were gonna get it for not having a sarc tag. LMAO!!!
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