Controversial CO SOS Gessler Complains of Partisanship, Gridlock in Election Administration

This Electionline Weekly interview is sure to get some attention:

What was the most difficult time/issue you have faced (elections wise of course) as secretary?

As our states’ chief election officials, secretaries of state enforce election laws. We’re tasked with ensuring only eligible voters cast ballots, and the eligibility requirements are few: citizens, 18 or older, and Colorado residents. Instead of relying on a loose honor system, we decided to verify citizenship, just like we check against the other two requirements. But the gridlock, partisanship, and hysteria surrounding this issue is disappointing. Just getting the federal government to comply with federal law and provide us with the information we needed was a big challenge. We got the runaround from various levels of the federal bureaucracy for over a year before we finally worked out an agreement to verify citizenship data. This helped pave the way for other states to also verify data. But it amazes me that certain partisans continue to oppose enforcement of basic, uncontroversial laws that protect election integrity.

It also disappointing that people frequently throw common sense out the door when it comes to election integrity. During the 2012 election cycle, a reporter from Mexico City interviewed me. When he disapprovingly focused on election integrity issues like photo identification and citizenship, I told him that I merely wanted to implement something like the Mexican system in Colorado. Mexico has strong integrity protections, which have helped improve the fairness and integrity of its elections. But he thought that Hispanic voters were fundamentally different than Mexican voters, and that while photo identification was fine for Mexico, it was somehow terrible in the United States. I strongly disagreed — fair and honest voting systems are a universal aspiration, regardless of race, ethnicity, or country of origin.

Protecting the sanctity of our voter rolls shouldn’t be a wedge issue. In fact, what we’ve seen is that when voters trust the system and trust the results, turnout and participation improves. That should be our goal. If voters don’t trust the system, it makes little difference how easy it is to get a ballot.

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