Colorado Secretary of State Encourages Non-Citizens, Deceased to Register to Vote
Democrat Colorado Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, drew flak last week after a report from CBS4 circulated about her office mailing postcards to encourage registering to vote including the non-eligible.
The mailer, sent to about 750,000, included the non-citizen and deceased.
Earlier reportson dead people included in the voters’ list have also spread after an election watchdog verified about 350,000 deceased in the voter rolls across states.
According to the outlet, one of the recipients is Karen Anderson’s mother, who she said, “has been dead four years and hasn’t lived, voted, owned property, worked, or done anything other than visiting Colorado since 1967.”
CBS4 also found several non-eligible voters who received the postcards. Some of them include “a deceased woman in Las Animas County, six migrant workers in Otero County, a Canadian in Douglas County, a man from Lebanon in Jefferson County, and a British citizen in Arapahoe County.”
Colorado State defended the act, saying it hoped that about 10% of the receivers would be encouraged to vote.
The director says he would rather that the postcards be also sent to few non-eligible voters if it would also increase the registration by 75,000 eligible voters.
“Yes, it’s true that occasionally it will go to a person that it shouldn’t go to, someone who’s already registered or somebody that’s below the age of 18,” Director of the Secretary of State’s election division Judd Choate told CBS4. He said the majority of which goes to eligible voters who would follow-up to register, get their ballot in the mail, and could vote in the elections.
In another reportby CBS4, Griswold clarified the confusion.
The Secretary of State says that the sent mailers are not the same as the mail-in ballots. While the postcards targeted the potentially eligible voters, the mail-in ballots are sent to registered voters. The postcards, in essence, aim to encourage the unregistered voters to register.
She shares the Electronic Registration Information Center, an outside organization, compiled the mailing list. DMV records and Social Security Death Index are used by the organization to identify potentially eligible voters in the state.
“Because of this outreach, which started under Republican secretaries of state prior to my administration, we have one of the highest percentages of registered people in the nation and lead the nation in turnout,” Griswold told CBS4.