Ballot transparency a statewide debate; poll favors transparency

Ballot transparency a statewide debate

Issue might wind up before Colorado Legislature

Janet Urquhart
The Aspen Times,  Aspen, CO Colorado

ASPEN — A candidate's request to inspect ballots cast in Aspen's 2009 municipal election has set in motion similar efforts around Colorado. The end result might be new rules that govern the review of ballots or that withhold them from public inspection altogether.


Meanwhile, Aspen resident and 2009 mayoral candidate Marilyn Marks is expected to review on Tuesday 100 ballots cast in Pitkin County's Nov. 1 election. Rather than simply eye the ballots, though, Marks has suggested that county Clerk and Recorder Janice Vos Caudill and a group of election officials look over 100 to 200 ballots with Marks and discuss whether any of them are “identifiable.”

The potential to link a voter to a particular ballot via various election information that is available to the public through the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) has emerged as a concern among county clerks across the state as they respond to ballot requests from Marks and others.

Go with the constitution: a letter to editor by Harvie Branscomb

http://www.aspendailynews.com/section/letter-editor/150357

Go with the constitution

Friday, November 25, 2011

Carolyn Sackariason’s article, “Litigious days at City Hall” (Aspen Daily News, 11/21/11), includes a mystifying yet illuminating sentence: “The city, however, contends that releasing the ballots, even if they’re kept anonymous, will substantially injure the public interest because voters could potentially be identified.”

This sentence captures the essence of an epic controversy over who should see ballots. Aspen has withheld the prepared CD of the 2009 ballot scans that could have accompanied disks I and others received of the vote patterns and GrassRootsTV’s recording of ballot scans projected at City Hall on election night.

The sentence reveals the prevailing misunderstanding about why democracy needs anonymity and what ought to be secret in our voting method that is quirkily, but inaccurately, known as secret ballot. It isn’t what’s on the ballot that’s supposed to be secret — it’s the identity of the person who voted it. Our state constitution calls it “secrecy in voting,” never mentions a secret ballot, and specifically requires that no one can know who voted a particular ballot. That’s anonymity. It is a beautiful thing that Aspen may have forgotten.