IN COLORADO RECALL ELECTION, REACH OUT TO OVERSEAS U.S.A. VOTERS

IN COLORADO RECALL ELECTION, REACH OUT TO OVERSEAS U.S.A. VOTERS

By The Denver Post Editorial Board, 08/13/2013

The recall elections against two Colorado lawmakers won't take place until Sept. 10, but regardless of the outcomes, we know U.S. military personnel and taxpayers are likely to be losers.

And while officials can't do much to protect taxpayers at this point, they must do everything in their power to ensure that overseas voters aren't disenfranchised — which is now a real possibility.

We don't quarrel with the decision Monday by Denver District Judge Denver McGahey that the Libertarian Party should have until Aug. 26 to gather enough signatures to put its candidates on the recall ballots. But it does mean the recall elections against Democratic state Sens. John Morse of Colorado Springs and Angela Giron of Pueblo almost certainly cannot be conducted by all-mail ballots.

And if Libertarians place candidates on the ballot, election clerks in El Paso and Pueblo counties would have to send out new ballots to military and overseas voters who had already been sent ballots with no Libertarians.

There are ways to handle this electronically, but for some military voters, who are in dangerous forward deployments in combat zones, e-mail and fax machines may be non-existent.

Relying only on mail delivery, it may be nearly impossible for some of these voters to receive their new ballots and then mail them back in time to be counted in the election. And that's even with an eight-day post-election period in which clerks can accept these ballots.

Aside from the possible disenfranchisement of some voters, the printing of new ballots, along with the fact that the counties now have to open vote centers in place of just mailing ballots to voters, means the price of these recall elections just got jacked up.

In El Paso County, Clerk and Recorder Wayne Williams told us the cost would increase from the original $152,000 to $240,000.

That's unfortunate, but it can't be the main focus of concern. Assuming McGahey's ruling withstands appeal, it's far more important for the clerks to gear up to reach out to as many overseas voters as quickly as possible.