Colorado sends voter roll information over to Trump election integrity commission
DENVER – Colorado finally sent its voter roll information over to President Donald Trump’s election integrity commission on Tuesday, a day after the transfer was delayed due to “user error” in the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office.
The office had been set to send the information over to the controversial commission on Monday, but a spokeswoman for the office said a system lockout stopped the transfer. Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert told the Denver Post Monday night it was due to “user error.”
The sending of the information had already been delayed while a lawsuit over the commission and its request was cleared up in federal court.
Williams has said since the day after the request first came in that he would only send the commission what was allowable under state law: a voter’s full name, address, party affiliation and date the person registered, phone number, gender identity, birth year, and information about if a person has voted in prior elections.
The commission had also requested two things that Colorado won’t hand over: a voter’s Social Security number and a voter’s birth date—things that aren’t public record in Colorado.
Colorado has seen among the highest number of voter registration withdrawals in response to the commission’s request, which some have framed as being no more than an attempt to disenfranchise or suppress voters.
The commission, the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, was formed by President Trump after his repeated, yet unfounded, claims that millions of people had voted illegally in last year’s election.
As of Friday, 5,314 voters in Colorado had withdrawn their voter registrations since June 28, the day the commission made its first request, and another 246 had become confidential voters—something Colorado allows people to do if they are victims of domestic violence or could be threatened by having their address made public.
The commission’s vice chair, Kris Kobach, said in a federal filing Monday that he would try to avoid having to answer questions under oath about two documents regarding plans for changes to election law in the United States.
Posted on: August 1, 2017Blair Miller