-By Joan McCarter
October 3, 2011- In a very determined effort by Colorado's Republican Secretary of State, Scott Gessler, to make sure as few people as possible actually get to vote in Colorado, U.S. troops serving overseas won't get to vote.
Pueblo County Clerk Gilbert “Bo” Ortiz will comply with Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s order not to send ballots to soldiers out of state who are legally registered Pueblo County voters but who failed to cast ballots in 2010. The news came Friday afternoon in a carefully worded release that came after hours of deliberation.
“Pueblo County will honor Secretary Gessler’s order but this is not over,” Ortiz is quoted to say. “Pueblo County is currently weighing [its] legal options, including taking the issue to court. The Secretary of State effectively has denied 64 active military personnel the opportunity to vote.”
Gessler unveiled a new interpretation of state election law last week, when he filed a lawsuit to stop Denver County from mailing ballots to “inactive” voters as it had done for the last five years. An inactive voter in Colorado is a voter who is legally registered but who has failed to cast a vote in the previous general election—in this case the election of 2010.[…]
Gessler made a career as a lawyer of defending Republican clients and causes in election and campaign finance cases. He has been a controversial secretary of state since winning office in the “GOP wave election” of 2010. He has said that, in directing majority Democratic Denver and Pueblo county not to mail ballots to inactive voters, he is seeking to guard against fraud and make the state’s election rules uniform.
What a shock that Gessler would target Democratic-voting counties for voter "fraud." He is suing the clerk of Denver county to try to stop the mailing of ballots to all registered voters. And, for now, he has succeeded in disenfranchising Colorado soldiers. Apparently, the era of Republicans supporting the troops is over.