This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
A major elections bill moving through the Colorado statehouse seeks to curb the influence of potential federal election interference and would update the state’s definition of disaster to include an election emergency.
“Strengthening our systems against emerging threats while expanding access for voters at a time when confidence in our elections is being undermined for political gain,” Democratic Sen. Katie Wallace of Longmont said.
Wallace is one of the bill’s sponsors and said the goal is to protect the integrity of Colorado's elections. “Ensuring every eligible voter can participate freely, securely, and confidently.”
House Bill 1113 requires clerks to mail ballots earlier, allows ballot drop boxes to accept ballots earlier and voting centers to be open longer. It would also give Colorado's governor more power to respond to a potential threat or inability to carry out an election. The governor would be able to convene an election emergency advisory group to assist with responding to an election disaster.
Democratic Sen. Mike Weissman from Aurora said Colorado needs to make voting robust and secure from threats.
“It's the foundation of everything else that we grapple with politically in this country,” Weissman said.
The proposal also mandates that Colorado adopt geospatial (GIS) data, information tied to specific geographic locations, into the statewide voter registration system. County clerks testified that the bill has a lot of good points, especially highlighting that GIS information would lead to more accurate voter registration rolls.
“It's impossible to overstate the importance of putting GIS into our score voter registration database,” said Matt Crane, the head of the Colorado County Clerks Association. Crane, a former Republican county clerk, said he supports the current version of the bill.
“We can have great access while having great integrity; we're very proud to be a part of this process.” He said even though no election model is perfect, “the bill moves our model to a much better place than we were before.”
Colorado clerks in both political parties have consistently pushed back against President Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that there is massive fraud with mail-in voting, even as he has cast votes via mail ballots. Recently, Trump pressed Congress to set up limits to mail-in voting, without any legislative success.
Colorado’s bill recently passed the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs committee without Republican support. Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson of Colorado Springs highlighted her concerns with the state’s voting system and referenced several incidents, including when the Secretary of State’s office inadvertently included BIOS passwords for the state’s voting machines in a hidden tab on a spreadsheet online. The situation left election officials scrambling days ahead of an election. In another instance in 2022, Colorado accidentally mailed postcards to roughly 30,000 non-citizens notifying them on how they could register to vote. The state said safeguards in Colorado’s online voter registration system prevent an application from a non-citizen from going through.
“But to say that we have the gold standard and that our elections are secure, I would disagree with that greatly,” Wilson said. “To equate success with accessibility and our security takes a hit, I cannot support this bill.”
It passed 3-2 and now heads to the Senate Appropriations committee.
