Monday, July 10, 2023
3 DAYS AGO
ELECTION INTEGRITY
NEWS
REVEALED: Election Officials Lobbied for Colorado’s BAN on Hand-Counting Votes.
Colorado legislation supposedly aimed at increasing election security effectively outlawed hand-counting ballots in most of the state, and election officials are the ones who requested the ban.
The Colorado Election Security Act (SB22-153) was drafted in response to Mesa County clerk Tina Peters allowing election skeptics to replicate hard drives to check for evidence of fraud. SB22-153 contains a number of provisions, with the state government mostly focusing on those outlawing replication, and banning people convicted of insurrection or sedition from becoming election officials.
At a meeting of the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED), Colorado’s elections director Judd Choate said “probably… the most important part” of the law is a rule most missed or ignored: an effective ban on hand-counting ballots almost everywhere in the state.
Choate said the ban was included at the request of the Colorado County Clerks Association, to stop “the election denial world” from “badgering” officials to hand-verify votes tabulated by machines.
As a result, any county with over 1,000 registered voters must tabulate votes using machines, and election officials asked to verify controversial results by hand-counting can safely say they are legally unable to comply.
At the same conference, Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger – who recently said “tough noogies” to Ph.D. scientists who fear voting machines are riddled with “critical vulnerabilities” – was hailed by election officials as having “saved democracy” in 2020.
NASED is currently in the news for lobbying the federal government to tell voters it is not a problem that they will not update voting machines to meet new federal standards in time for the 2024 election.
