2016 Election Fairness At Risk Under Proposed LegislationStop

HB-1126
Summary: Proposed HB1126 greatly dilutes candidates rights to have
meaningful election observation and verification through appointed watchers.
This bill greatly reduces election transparency and allows more behindclosed-doors ballot processing. Take action to stop this assault on fair and
transparent elections.
The Colorado legislature is poised to hear HB16-1126 designed to dilute
candidates and parties rights to have their independent observers witness
and verify the election processes and ballot tabulation. I believe that the bill
is the greatest assault on election transparency seen in recent legislative
history in any state. Colorado is already at risk by being the only state with
the toxic mix of same day registration and mandatory mail ballots.
The Details
The legislation is slated to be heard first in the Democratic majority House of
Representatives. The bill needs to be killed before it gains momentum from
those who have reason to limit candidates and citizens access to verify their
elections. Heres a short list of some of the many reasons why:
--Colorado has long-standing strong statutory watcher rights intended to
protect candidates, voters, political parties and issue committees by providing
that independent observers and press can witness and verify each step in
the conduct of the election. HB1126 seeks to dilute those important rights.
It gives no new or expanded rights of oversight.
--With the modernized election processes of all-mail ballots, same day
registration and Internet voting for active duty military and overseas
civilians, the risk of irregularities has escalated exponentially. Election
officials who sponsored that legislation do not want transparency, oversight
or any resulting questions about the high-risk, error-prone election processes
now in place. The goal of HB1126 is to make independent observation more
difficult and restricted.
--HB1126 would treat watchers/press as enemies who should be restricted in
what they see, yet there should be nothing in the election process that is
restricted from anyones view or verification, save the act of voting itself. All
ballots, voter registration records, ballot envelopes, voter identification, ballot
counts, exception reports, etc. should be open for verification by the press and
authorized watchers appointed by the interested parties. The only

restrictions should be essentially the same as the restrictions on partyappointed election judges. If truly confidential information needs review, it
must be kept confidential. (But very little truly confidential information is
involved in an election.)
--HB1126 would prevent watchers from communicating with their party,
candidate, or attorneys their concerns about errors in vote tabulations or
preliminary results until after the results are formally certified and
announced about two weeks after election day. This effectively undercuts the
key function of a watcher to correct errors as they are happening.
--Candidates and other interested parties are currently authorized to appoint
watchers from eligible registered voters in their party at their discretion.
HB1126 would force candidates to pay for and wait for background checks on
their watchers to check signatures. Candidates would be required to appoint
watchers 25 days in advance of election day, and would be hamstrung if
problems developed in ballot counting in certain locations and additional
watchers were necessary (such as in Adams County in 2014.)
--In a primary, candidates now have the right to have one watcher per
precinct, although that many watchers are not usually needed. Amendments
to HB1126 are under discussion to limit candidates to one watcher per
county!
--Current law gives the candidates watchers the right to assist in the
correction of discrepancies in the election process. HB1126 dilutes this right
by creating limitations on how a watcher may communicate errors and if
ignored by officials, their recommended remedy is an impossibly expensive
lawsuit where if lost, they must pay the opposing parties legal fees.
Conclusions
HB1126 contains quite a few more such transparency-defeating examples. In
summary, the bill goes in the wrong direction. Watcher rights and election
transparency have been eroded by clerks and Secretary of State policies (not
statute) in recent years. Legislation would have been helpful to reinforce
those broad-ranging rights to witness and verify each step in the conduct of
the election. However, HB1126 goes the wrong direction, attempting to
codify the erosion of watcher access that has been improperly forced by these
officials.
This issue is somewhat partisan with the Democrats preferring a
government-run election with minimal citizen oversight. But joining in that
government controlled view are clerks and election officials of both parties

and the Secretary of State. It is a classic clash of government behind-closeddoors activities versus the citizens right to know.
Consider this bills principles in contrast to the South Carolina Constitution
as the presidential race attention is about to turn to South Carolina. Their
constitution provides, All elections by the people shall be by secret ballot,
but the ballots shall not be counted in secret. Colorados principles should
have the same underpinnings. HB1126 takes us in the opposite direction.
I have discussed my concerns about this bill with Representative Windholz
(R) and I have not yet understood her reasons for bringing this legislation. I
urge you to contact her and request that she move to have the bill postponed
indefinitely.
I am happy to answer any questions you may have about my views on this
bill.
Marilyn Marks
Marilyn@AspenOffice.com