Election 2016
88 percent of Colorado voter registration withdrawals are from Democrats, unaffiliated voters
DENVER – Democrats and unaffiliated voters in Colorado have made up the overwhelming majority of the people who have withdrawn their voter registrations or become confidential voters in the state in response to the Trump administration’s request for voter roll information on behalf of its controversial election integrity commission.
By the end of day Friday, 3,738 Colorado voters had withdrawn their registration, and 200 had become confidential voters—something people in Colorado can do by signing a sworn affidavit at their county clerk’s office saying they could be in danger by having their addresses made public. Continue reading
Colorado woman charged with voter fraud, accused of forging dead parents’ signatures
EL PASO COUNTY, Colo. – A Colorado woman has been charged with six counts of voter fraud for allegedly writing her dead parents’ names on their mail-in ballots multiple times in elections between 2009 and 2013.
Sarilu Sosa-Sanchez, 59, was charged in late May in El Paso County with six counts of forgery of a government-issued document, a class 5 felony. A DNA collection was also ordered in the case. Continue reading
Trump election fraud commission wants personal information from Colorado, US voter rolls
DENVER – The vice chair of President Donald Trump’s controversial Election Integrity Commission wants the full name, address, date of birth, affiliated political party, last four Social Security number digits and voting history since 2006 of every voter not only in Colorado, but in the entire U.S., and wants that information to be made available to the public.
The vice chair of the commission, Kris Kobach, sent a letter requesting that information and more on Wednesday to Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams and every other secretary of state for all 50 states. Continue reading
Colorado authorities say election system wasn’t breached after report leaks NSA intel
DENVER – Colorado authorities haven’t received any notice from federal agencies that state voter systems were compromised during last year’s election, they said Tuesday.
On Monday, The Intercept published a leaked National Security Agency classified intelligence document showing that Russian hackers were able to phish their way into some U.S. elections systems, specifically through a company called VR Systems. Continue reading
Federal lawsuit argues Amendment 71, requiring rural input on ballot measures, is unconstitutional
DENVER – A handful of ballot measure proponents have filed a federal lawsuit arguing that Amendment 71, which changed the way constitutional amendments can reach Colorado’s ballot when it was approved by voters last year, violates the U.S. and Colorado constitutions.
The lawsuit is the first legal challenge to Amendment 71, which despite being among the more-controversial measures on last year’s Colorado ballot, was approved by 55.7 percent of the vote. Voting against the measure were 44.3 percent of Coloradans. Continue reading
Coffman-Carroll competition for 6th Colo. House seat was among few close races nationwide
DENVER – Not only did Colorado have the fourth-highest voter turnout of any state in last year’s election, but one of our House races was among just a handful with a margin of victory within 10 percentage points in an election that was largely a landslide for congressional seats nationwide.
The U.S. Elections Project and Nonprofit VOTE released a report titled “America Goes to the Polls 2016” that details voter turnout and voting data from the 2016 election on Thursday. Continue reading
Colorado ‘Hamilton electors’ lawsuits cost taxpayers nearly $40K in legal fees
DENVER – Colorado taxpayers paid nearly $40,000 in lawyers’ fees in the court battles that surrounded two Democratic Colorado electors who unsuccessfully fought the state law that required them to vote for Hillary Clinton.
Electors Polly Baca and Robert Nemanich fought the state law, which requires electors to cast their electoral ballot for the candidate that won the state’s popular vote, in federal court – first in U.S. District Court of Colorado, then in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals once their initial request for an injunction was denied.
The Colorado Secretary of State also filed suit against Baca and Nemanich in Denver District Court in order to have a judge clarify the legal ramifications the electors would face should they either not take the oath of office for electors or fail to follow state rules in casting their votes.
Baca and Nemanich were among a group of so-called “Hamilton Electors” across the country who argued that state laws telling electors who to vote for were unconstitutional. The movement was aimed at getting Republican electors not to vote for Donald Trump and electors in states without binding rules to cast their vote for someone else as well.
In the end, fewer than 10 electoral votes nationally were cast for a candidate not named Trump or Clinton.
One of them was from Micheal Baca of Denver, who took the oath of office but “wrote in” John Kasich’s name on the ballot, thus invalidating it and opening the door for his possible prosecution. He was replaced after failing to adhere to his oath, and all of Colorado’s votes ended up going to Clinton as mandated by the state law.
LAWYERS’ FEES ADD UP, BUT NOT OUT OF ORDINARY
Some readers had asked how much lawyers’ fees for the state would cost because of the court fights. The state’s attorneys were provided through the Attorney General’s Office and were used by the attorney general, Gov. John Hickenlooper and Secretary of State Wayne Williams in the cases. Williams was the only plaintiff in the suit asking Denver District Court for guidance.
Attorneys’ fees for various cases each office appears in court for are tabulated at the end of each month. The Secretary of State’s Office provided the figures to Denver7 Thursday after they were requested in December.
In both cases, the attorneys billed the state at $98.26 an hour.
Defense fees in the federal case amounted to a total of $9,213.44 in December for the federal case for the Secretary of State’s Office, which said its fees were one-third of the total fees. The Attorney General’s Office and Governor’s Office were both billed the same amount, leading to a total of $27,640.32 charged to taxpayers for 93.77 hours of attorneys’ work.
In the Denver case in which the Secretary of State’s Office was the only plaintiff, the office was billed for 107.7 hours at $98.26 an hour, equaling $10,582.59. It was also billed $23.12 for paralegal and investigator services, bringing the total bill for that case to $10,605.71.
Those two figures combined mean taxpayers paid $38,246.03 in December for the elector court cases.
To put that in context, the Secretary of State’s Office was billed a total of $136,955.55 in December alone, meaning state taxpayers likely pay millions in attorneys’ fees for various agencies and offices each year.
There are likely to be some minimal additional fees in January as well, as the federal case remains open in the U.S. District Court of Colorado pending the resolution of a motion filed Jan. 12 by the state to stay discovery and disclosures in the case.
Lawyers for Baca and Nemanich were granted an unopposed motion to dismiss their appeal in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals two days earlier.
The investigation into Micheal Baca’s actions also remains pending, though there are few instances of “faithless electors” who violated state elector law ever being prosecuted in the U.S.
Messages sent Friday to the Colorado Attorney General’s Office asking whether Baca would be prosecuted went unreturned.
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Woman convicted of forging ballot signatures for Senate candidate sentenced to probation
DENVER – The Colorado signature collector who pleaded guilty to two felony counts of forgery last November for turning in dozens of forged signatures on a petition for a U.S. Senate candidate was sentenced to probation and community service Friday in Denver.
Maureen Moss, 45, will be on probation for four years and will have to perform 250 hours of community service, a Denver District Court judge ruled Friday morning.
Moss was originally charged with 34 felony forgery counts after Denver7 uncovered 10 forged signatures and investigators at district attorney’s offices in Denver, Arapahoe and Jefferson counties confirmed there were 24 further instances.
The forged signatures were all put on a petition drive to get Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser on June’s primary election ballot. He made the primary ballot, but took fourth in the primary, which was won by Darryl Glenn.
Court documents also revealed that Moss had an extensive criminal history regarding fraudulent and forged credit card usage.
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All four of Colorado’s Congressional Democrats say they will attend Trump’s inauguration
DENVER – As handfuls of Democratic Congressional representatives say they plan to boycott Donald Trump’s inauguration, Colorado’s all say they will be attending.
Many Democratic members of Congress started saying over the weekend that they wouldn’t attend the inaugural ceremony, which is a tradition but not a requirement, after a spat between Georgia Rep. John Lewis and the president-elect.
Rep. Lewis said in an interview late last week he wouldn’t attend the inauguration after he questioned Trump’s legitimacy as president in an interview with NBC News. He said in the interview that he doesn’t believe Trump is a “legitimate” president because of the allegations Russia intervened in the General Election.
After Trump saw the interview, he tweeted out that Lewis was “all talk” and “no action,” saying Lewis should instead focus on his own district, which Trump called “crime infested” and “burning.”
Many Congressional Democrats took issue with Trump’s words, calling it an attack on Lewis, who had a large part in the civil rights actions in the 1960s. He marched in Selma and was an ally of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s.
The Congressional Black Caucus led the boycott of the inauguration, but many Democrats followed suit Monday in saying they would also boycott the event.
However, when asked Monday if they would attend, Colorado’s four Congressional Democrats all said they would be there.
Sen. Michael Bennet, Rep. Ed Perlmutter, Rep. Diana DeGette and Rep. Jared Polis all confirmed with Denver7’s Marc Stewart that they would attend Trump’s inauguration. The state’s Republican members of Congress all said they plan to attend as well.
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Presidential farewell addresses started with Washington, but weren’t a staple until Truman
President Barack Obama gave his final address to the country Tuesday night, addressing what he called victories and failures during his two terms and ending with his hope for continued progression in the country.
The presidential farewell address began with our nation’s first president, George Washington, but did not become a staple of American presidencies until the latter half of the 20th century.
Washington’s first “farewell address” urged Americans to stay together and to avoid partisanship, and was printed in a Philadelphia paper nearly six months before the end of his term.
The next address wasn’t given until Andrew Jackson published his in 1837 – nearly 40 years after Washington’s. That gap in time proved noteworthy in the differences between the two addresses – Jackson talked about how the U.S. and constitution were now engrained in society.
Jackson’s speech, like Washington’s and many of those that were to come, focused on the “common man” being involved in politics, which he said should not be left up to elites with money.
Andrew Johnson ran his farewell message in the New York Times in 1869 despite being impeached a year earlier.
Despite being president at the end of a tumultuous era in America following the Civil War and President Lincoln’s assassination, he lashed out at his political enemies, drawing scorn from many other newspapers. Another farewell address was not given until Harry Truman’s in 1953.
Truman’s address was the first in speech form and was broadcast to all of America. He talked about the great changes American had undergone over the first half the century and during his presidency specifically, and asked his fellow Americans to consider the gravity of some of the decisions he had to make, including dropping the atomic bomb, and “how hard a job” the presidency is.
Since then, every president aside from John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated, has given a farewell speech. Even Richard Nixon, who resigned amid impeachment proceedings, gave a speech in which he said “au revoir” to America.
The Miller Center at the University of Virginia archives presidential speeches. You can find any of the past presidents’ farewell speeches there.
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