The Denver Post offers this report, which begins: “Colorado Secretary of State Donetta Davidson issued strict guidelines for poll watchers across the state today, limiting each party to one person per station and banning outside groups from sending out teams of lawyers to monitor the closely watched election.”
A reader who brought this story to my attention writes: “Why are the parties that are IN the election that only ones that can MONITOR the election? This sounds
ridiculous. Is there any basis in election law for challenging these restrictions?”
Certainly elections officials can set reasonable regulations for conducting elections, including limiting the number of poll watchers. Otherwise, polls could become chaotic. The argument for outside observers, it seems to me, depends upon some possibility of collusion between the poll watchers of the two parties.