Coffman Marks 100 Days in Office

Restoring Voter Confidence is Coffman’s Top Priority

Denver, April 16, 2007 – Mike Coffman will mark his 100th day serving as Colorado’s 35th Secretary of State this week. Since assuming office, Coffman has made restoring voter confidence his top priority by strengthening the testing requirements for electronic voting machines and initiating a program to assist and monitor counties that experienced problems during last November’s election.

As Colorado’s chief elections official, Coffman has pushed for legislation to help Colorado military men and women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan apply for absentee ballots, and he has been vocally opposed to legislation that he believes would be harmful to Colorado’s elections.

Highlights from Coffman’s first 100 days include:

• County Election Watch List – This policy signifies an important step in protecting the integrity of elections and in making sure that Colorado’s elections are always fair, honest and well-managed. If a county fails to remedy the problems that placed them on the list, Coffman will seek court-ordered supervision of their elections. The policy is an intermediate step to allow the Secretary’s office and counties to work together in order to avoid court-ordered supervision. Five counties have been placed on the list – Denver, Douglas, Montrose, Pueblo and Routt.
  
  “The watch list initiative will ensure that counties abide by federal and state law when conducting their elections, and that elections are well-managed, so voters are not subjected to unreasonably long wait times,” Coffman said.
  
  
• Stronger Security Standards for Electronic Voting Machines – To ensure that electronic voting machines are secure and can accurately count every vote in a verifiable way, Coffman will test these machines for recertification, subjecting them to 437 functional tests.
  
  “The electronic voting machines used during our elections must protect our most sacred right – the right to vote,” Coffman said. “That’s why it is critical to have stringent security measures surrounding their use.”
  
  
• Aid Military Voters with Absentee Applications – Stemming from his personal experience while serving in Iraq, where he was unable to vote in the 2005 election, Coffman drafted legislation to make it easier for every eligible member of the armed forces from Colorado to vote while deployed overseas in a combat zone.
  
  “Of all of the freedoms bestowed upon Americans, the most sacred is the right to vote. We should make sure that those who are willing to make tremendous sacrifices to defend our freedoms are never denied that right.”
  
  
• Opposed Ill-Advised Legislation – Coffman has been a vocal opponent of two provisions under consideration in the General Assembly that he considers harmful to Colorado elections.
  
  SB07-46 would have entered Colorado into a multi-state agreement to elect the President and Vice President of the United States by national popular vote.
  
  “Colorado voters soundly defeated an initiative to abolish the Electoral College in 2002,” Coffman said. “Regarding an issue of this importance – that affects how we elect our Commander-in-Chief – and when the will of the people has been so clearly expressed at the ballot box, the people’s position should be upheld by the legislature.”
  
  The bill was “killed” in the House Committee on State, Veterans, & Military Affairs.
  
  SB07-83 is an election law technical clean-up bill that was amended in order to give individuals on parole the right to vote.
  
  “I adamantly oppose giving voting rights to parolees until they have finished serving their sentence, as I believe it violates the State Constitution,” Coffman said. “The Colorado Supreme Court has clearly stated that individuals should not be afforded the privilege of voting until their prison sentence has been served in full, regardless of whether the sentence is served out in confinement or while on parole.”
  
  The bill will be debated in the House this week.