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Colorado calls its elections a model. Mark Cook says voters have lost oversight of them
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Colorado calls its elections a model. Mark Cook says voters have lost oversight of them

By RMV Staff | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado's top election officials call the state's voting system a national model. Secretary of State Jena Griswold has described it as the "gold standard," pointing to first-in-the-nation risk-limiting audits, bipartisan checks and ballot tracking. Mark Cook argues that the people the system is supposed to answer to — voters, and the county clerks closest to them — have lost meaningful oversight of how it runs. Cook made that case during a recent appearance on Unleashed with Heidi Ganahl, where the conversation ranged from election transparency and county clerks to Tina Peters and Gov. Jared Polis. Cook's claim is not that one party rigged a result. It is structural: that administration has drifted upward over time, from county clerks to state...
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Signature Gathering Intensifies As Colorado Ballot Battles Take Shape
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Signature Gathering Intensifies As Colorado Ballot Battles Take Shape

By Sherrie Peif | Complete Colorado DENVER– A large-scale signature gathering effort is underway in Colorado as proponents rush to get numerous citizen-initiated ballot measures qualified for the November statewide election, with issues ranging from from a right to hunt and fish to capping the stat income tax rate. The conservative advocacy group Advance Colorado, for example, is hip-deep in the effort, with two measures already on the ballot and at least three others are in the signature gathering phase. Already on the ballot is “Penalties for Fentanyl Crimes,” a statutory change that reinstates certain penalties related to fentanyl that the Democrat-controlled legislature has weakened or removed over the years. A second measure, “Law Enforcement Reporting Requ...
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Colorado Moves Toward Month Long Voting Under New Elections Bill
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Colorado Moves Toward Month Long Voting Under New Elections Bill

By Jesse Paul | The Colorado Sun Another provision in House Bill 1113, a major elections bill headed to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk, would let the governor declare a disaster emergency if there is a major election disruption. Election Day is about to become election month in Colorado.  A bill headed to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk would let county clerks begin mailing ballots to registered voters 29 days before Election Day, up from 22. Clerks would have to finish mailing out ballots no later than 25 days before an election, up from 18.  State Rep. Emily Sirota, a Denver Democrat and lead sponsor of House Bill 1113, said the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office and elections advocates asked for the change because they are worried about the Trump administration ...
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Colorado fought scrutiny—until a lawsuit forced a cleanup
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado fought scrutiny—until a lawsuit forced a cleanup

By RMV Editorial Board | Rocky Mountain Voice Back in 2019, Colorado’s voter rolls were already showing the problem—if anyone in charge had been willing to look at them. Forty counties had more registered voters than eligible citizens. Call it whatever you want—but it’s not normal. That wasn’t a partisan claim. It wasn’t a social media theory. It was data. And for a long time, it just sat there. No press conference. No urgency. No statewide fix. Then something happened. Someone sued. The lawsuit no one was supposed to take seriously Eventually, someone stopped waiting for the state to act. By October 2020, it had crossed a line. Judicial Watch took it to federal court, filing suit against Jena Griswold under the National Voter Registration Act. An...
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What Sets J.J. McKinzie Apart in Colorado’s Secretary of State Race
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

What Sets J.J. McKinzie Apart in Colorado’s Secretary of State Race

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice J.J. McKinzie is one of four Republicans running for the open Secretary of State seat,  and he is not running on name recognition. He is running on a resume that looks nothing like most politicians'. McKinzie spent more than 25 years inside some of the largest companies in the world, advising on regulatory compliance and operational efficiency. He has owned small businesses, led nonprofits, and homeschooled his children for over two decades.  He holds degrees from Colorado State University, the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and Charis Bible College, with training in psychology, business, technology, futures studies, and biblical studies, including five master’s degrees. "In consulting, I had to deliver...
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A system under scrutiny: Colorado’s election system faces clash over how it’s verified
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A system under scrutiny: Colorado’s election system faces clash over how it’s verified

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to compile a nationwide citizenship list and share it with state election officials, it set off a debate in Colorado that hasn’t slowed. So what does that actually mean for Colorado? RMV asked two people on opposite sides of the issue—and got two very different answers. Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA), says Colorado’s system is strong, continuously maintained and already uses the federal tools referenced in the order. Bob Cooper, a director with the Colorado Institute for Fair Elections, argues the system cannot be independently audited for accuracy—and that’s the problem. The divide isn’t about whether the system w...
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El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away

By Bob Cooper, COIFFE Director | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice A $50,000 statewide solution was offered—and ignored—while Colorado processed more than 323,000 undeliverable ballots in a single year, costing over a million. This story should get your attention and maybe even make you angry if you care about election integrity issues—or simply about wasting taxpayer dollars in every county in Colorado. Get this: El Paso County has been implementing a common-sense voter roll maintenance process, a true “Gold Standard” process, to reduce election costs and clean up the “dirty,” bloated voter rolls. There is potential for this improved process to save thousands of dollars in election costs every year for every county in Colorado. To help the state implement this, El...
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High Court Weighs Limits On Mail Ballots As Election Debate Intensifies
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Colorado Politics, Approved, National

High Court Weighs Limits On Mail Ballots As Election Debate Intensifies

By: Mark Sherman | Colorado Politics WASHINGTON • The Supreme Court ‘s conservative majority on Monday sounded skeptical of state laws that allow the counting of late-arriving mail ballots. The court heard arguments in a case from Mississippi that also could affect voters in 13 other states and the District of Columbia, which have grace periods for ballots cast by mail. An additional 15 states that have more forgiving deadlines for ballots from military and overseas voters also could be impacted. Colorado already requires mail ballots to be received at county clerks’ offices by the time polling locations close on Election Day, although Colorado and the majority of states allow certain military and overseas ballots to be acce...
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Debunking the “Californians Turned Colorado Blue” Myth: Organic Change or Engineered Illusion?
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X Articles, Approved, Commentary, State

Debunking the “Californians Turned Colorado Blue” Myth: Organic Change or Engineered Illusion?

By Mark Cook | Commentary, Article on X The claim that an influx of liberal Californians (or even broader interstate migration) single-handedly flipped Colorado from a Republican-leaning swing state to a reliably Democratic one collapses under even modest scrutiny of the numbers. Between 2000 and 2024, Colorado absorbed roughly 2.8 million gross domestic in-migrants, with Californians making up about 25% (≈685,000). This represents only 25–30% of the state’s total population growth and less than one-third of the 3.25 million net new registered voters the Colorado Secretary of State’s office claims were added in the same period. Voter-file models consistently show domestic migrants breaking roughly 32% Republican, 28% Democratic, and 40% Unaffiliated/Independent, a mix that i...
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Gold standard or clear failure? Colorado trails 36 nations on election rules.
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Gold standard or clear failure? Colorado trails 36 nations on election rules.

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado’s election rulebook emphasizes convenience—automatic mail ballots, long voting windows and ballot harvesting—exactly where most countries draw hard lines. That philosophical split is why Colorado lands at 50 out of 100 in a new international survey, and why the authors behind it want an on-the-record conversation with the secretary of state. “We’d love to speak with your secretary of state… we’ll ask questions and she can ask questions,” said Gary Meyers, who co-authored the study with Jay DeLancy. Meyers explained that The Meyers Report is a long-running research group, active for more than forty years, with contributors spread across 30 countries. “We’re interested in truth, we’re interested in fairness,” he said, describing a team...
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