Voter problems rising

It has been busy the last couple of days as the campaign is simultaneously organizing for this final push known as GOTV (Get Out The Vote) effort is under with early voting culminating in the final weekend. The plan the Obama campaign is simply extraordinary for the few of us who have toiled in previous election days when we ran around like a Chinese Fire Drill in a silent movie. That said Colorado appears to be headed for the dubious distinction that has befallen Florida & Ohio as a corrupted voter environment. The reason is we have highly partisan and vested Republicans in control of the Secretary of State's office with partners like Bob Balink here in El Paso County who are unabashed in trying to make tactical nefarious efforts in suppressing opposition votes.

Also I am not going to provide a lot of regurgetation from the news pertaining to the polls or campaign he said---they said. You all can find that stuff on your own, and instead my own personal news and analysis centered upon El Paso County Colorado. So let me start, El Paso County's Clerk's office has become a daily stop for the Democratic Party Voter Protection Legal Team---are any of you surprised? Yesterday they participated with Deputy Secretary of State, William Hobbs with Bob Balink to find out that Balink's office is non compliant in processing Mail In Ballot (MIB's) requests that are coming in greater than 2000 per day. Balink is trying to brag that his office sent out over 110,000 MIB's on October 3rd and subsequently another 10,00o or so since but the process is getting backed up compared to other counties. This on the heals of State Senator John Morse's blistering statement to the press that outlined twelve (12) points of incompetence and shenanigans. Morse said:

But recent performances by the clerk and recorder — a delegate last month to the Republican National Convention in St. Paul — has left Morse peeling the gloves off.

Yes, Morse, a Democrat who represents much of south-central Colorado Springs in El Paso County, is fuming over recent snafus which, in his mind, constitute an emerging and consistent pattern. Morse does not mince words as he rattles off what he calls Balink’s 12-point strategy to disenfranchise voters. Without further ado:

El Paso County is Colorado’s most-populated county. It’s also, undeniably, a GOP stronghold with a rich legacy of political hijinks and shenanigans — usually inspired by Republicans. And that leaves plenty of progressives leery that, come Election Day, Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink will do everything he can to make it difficult, or at least unpleasant, for non-Republicans to vote.

Which leads us to Democrat state Sen. John Morse’s claims of Balink’s 12-point strategy to suppress the vote.

But on Monday an even more foreboding discovery was made regarding what is known as Replacement MIB from spoiled original ballots. You see, my wife received a MIB that possessed what is becoming a common thing, a data entry error in the spelling of her last name when she updated her registration this summer. It was corrected in the database but not in time to be caught by the Secretary of States printing of the original batch of MIB forms. After talking with Balink's Election office staff who were uninformed as to what to actually do with a non matching name until we reached Liz Olson the Election Department Manager where upon Olson cancelled my wife's original ballot and sent out a new one. That sounded pretty simple until we got the replacement ballot on Monday.

There we found that on address label which possesses the voter's ID her PARTY AFFILIATION was on it---PTY DEM. WTF! How can she now have a secret ballot when her party affiliation is as plain as day on the return envelope. Every mail handler from the carrier to the processor to the mail room clerk in the partisan County Clerk's office can see that this ballot is from a Democratic Party voter! Well I told the press, the voter protection legal team and talked directly to Olson and Balink. Alarms went off all over the place---this shouldn't happen it is wrong everyone said. By the end of the day we found out that the Secretary of State's SCORE (voter database) has a glitch when it comes to replacement ballot requests---it is hard coded to display party affiliation---why no one is admitting or seems to know. But here is the problem, everyone is trying to get voters to use the MIB process to stem the potential lines on election day.

The ballot you see takes at least an hour to navigate with all the (idiotic) voter initiatives written as if they are a crossword puzzle exercise so basically each precinct will only be able to handle about 10-15 voters per hour. Come on precincts have between 500 and 1000 voters and if the turnout is 80% they can only handle 180 voters in the 12 hours allotted on election day. You do the math, polls conceivably should be open for 3 days at that rate. S

So now the powers that be are trying to get well over a million voters to use the MIB option---except if one or two percent develop a spoiled ballot their replacement will have their party affiliation on it and they will lose the other sanctinity of our system---a secret ballot. Good job Coffman.

Tomorrow the Colorado Spring Independent will carry that other stories about El Paso County voter troubles so stay tuned.