Sixty-sixth General Assembly
Bills Supported by Colorado Common Cause
PASSED
Campaign Finance Reform:
HB08-1041-Sponsored by Representative M. Carroll and Senator Gordon, will expand enforcement of campaign finance laws and rules and would allow any person who believes that there was a violation to the campaign finance law to file a written complaint to the secretary of state.
CCC supports this bill because it will discourage violations to the campaign finance laws and will encourage public education and participation on campaign finance, as any member of the public could report any violations of this law to the secretary of state.
Elections:
HB08-1155-Sponsored by Representatives Balmer & Marshall and Senators Gordon & Johnson, addressed the recertification of voting machines and allows the Secretary of State to test those machines which were deemed problematic after the 2007 elections. The bill was signed by Governor Ritter on February 11th, 2008.
Colorado Common Cause supported this bill because it will assure voters that their votes will be counted accurately.
HB08-1329-Sponsored by Representative Marshall & Senator Gordon, addresses inactive voter status and mail ballot elections. This bill would require the county clerk and recorder to mail a confirmation card, during mail ballot elections, which would ask the elector to verify whether the elector desires to remain active for the purpose of casting a ballot and to any registered elector whose registration record has been marked “inactive.”
Colorado Common Cause actively supports this bill because inactive voters are typically unaware that they have been deemed inactive and are disenfranchised from the voting process.
HB08-1401- Sponsored by Representative M. Carroll and Senator Gordon, will require the county clerks and recorders to send a voter information card to each active registered eligible elector of the county and to each inactive registered eligible elector (although these cards will be non-forwardable).
CCC supports this bill because it would help to inform both active and inactive voters about upcoming elections.
HB08-1378- Sponsored by Representative Kefalas and Senator Gordon, allows cities and special districts to use Ranked Voting Methods, which allows electors to rank the candidates for an office in order of preference and uses these preferences to determine the winner of the election. This bill, also known as the “Voter Choice Act,” permits local government to use the ranked voting method unless it is prohibited by the charter or their election system is incapable of handling this kind of voting method.
CCC supports this act because it would give more flexibility for voters to choose their preferred candidates without the worry of throwing their vote away.
FAILED
Elections:
SB08-189-Sponsored by Senators Gordon & McElhany and Representatives May & Madden, surrounding paper ballots for the 2008 election, was killed in the Senate Appropriations committee on March 20th. CCC supported this bill because we believe that having a paper ballot trail would insure that votes were being counted accurately and could be used as a back-up if there are problems with the voting machines.
Colorado Common Cause will continue to support and advocate for legislation in the future which would push for every vote to be counted accurately.
SB08-198-Sponsored by Senator Gordon, addressed redistricting criteria and public process and would allow the creation of fair and competitive districts and allow the public to participate in the redistricting process. This bill was killed in the
SB08-40- Sponsored by Senator Gordon and Representative Casso, dealt with online voter registration and would have allowed a person who is qualified to vote to register to vote by completing an electronic application on the official web site of the secretary of state if the person's signature is stored in digital form in one of the databases used by the department of revenue (i.e. the state titling and registration system, the driver's license database, the motor vehicle registration database, the motorist insurance database, etc).
CCC supported this legislation as we encourage various forms of access to allow more voters to register.
SB08-240- Sponsored by Senator Gordon and Representative Casso, this bill, very similar to SB08-40, would have created a online system allowing electors who are qualified to vote to register to vote online as long as their signatures were on file with the Department of State and would have allowed these electors to make changes in their voter registration records.
Colorado Common Cause supported this bill because we support increasing the number of ways electors can register to vote in
Bills Opposed by
PASSED
Misc.:
SCR08-003-Sponsored by Senator Tapia and Representative White, will be on the ballot for the general assembly in November. Voters will decide whether they want an increased number of signatures required for a ballot initiative, decreased number of signatures required for a proposed statutory initiative, a minimum number of signatures for a proposed initiative to amend the state constitution to be gathered from residents of each congressional district in the state, an increase in the time allowed to gather signatures for a proposed statutory initiative, and would require a two-thirds vote of all members elected each House of the general assembly to amend, repeal, or supersede any law enacted by the initiative for a period of five years after the law becomes effective.
CCC opposes this resolution because it makes the initiative process more difficult for grassroots organizations to gather signatures but does nothing to prevent wealthy, out-of-state organizations from using the initiative process.
FAILED
Elections:
HB08-1039-Sponsored by Representative Summers and Senator Renfroe, regarding photo ID for voting was killed by House state affairs committee on February 7th, 2008.
CCC actively opposed this bill as it would further disenfranchise certain populations such as the elderly, disabled, people of color, and low-income individuals, from the voting process.
HB08-1177-Sponsored by Representative McNulty and Senator McElhany addressed proof of citizenship to register to vote was killed by House state affairs committee on February 7th, 2008.
Colorado Common Cause actively opposed this bill because it would disenfranchise the elderly, disabled, people of color, and low-income individuals, from the voting process.
Bills Monitored by
PASSED
Elections:
SB08-243- Sponsored by Senator Gordon and Representative M. Carroll, will create an election reform commission to study the manner in which state and local elections are currently conducted and recommend changes to the state’s election laws to protect the constitutional right to vote by ensuring that every election conducted in the state is accurate, secure, transparent, verifiable, re-countable, auditable, and accessible.
Colorado Common Cause took no position on this bill, however we do think that it is a good piece of legislation and we support the idea of a commission to monitor local and state elections.