This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.
DENVER | Coloradans who vote with a mail ballot must sign the ballot envelope. If voters approve a proposed constitutional amendment in November, they would also need to include an ID number on the envelope.
Amendment 84 would require voters to write the last four digits of their Social Security number, their Colorado driver’s license number or their REAL ID number on their mail ballot envelope to ensure it is counted.
Suzanne Taheri, a conservative attorney and former deputy secretary of state, is backing the initiative alongside Chuck Broerman, a conservative former El Paso County clerk, through the Colorado Voter Trust Initiative. The initiative is funded by the Coalition for American Prosperity and Growth, a “dark money” group.
The amendment would affect only mail ballots, which are automatically mailed to every registered Colorado voter. The vast majority of Coloradans do not vote in person. Those who do already need to present a valid ID at the polls. As a constitutional amendment, the measure would need 55% of the vote to pass.
Supporters of the measure say it creates a secondary verification method to confirm a ballot belongs to the right voter, reinforcing confidence in elections. Taheri did not respond prior to publication to Newsline’s questions about the goals, logistics and costs of the measure.
Opponents say the proposal adds privacy concerns for voters without further securing Colorado’s election process. The measure will lead to disenfranchisement, because more ballots could end up rejected and not counted over discrepancies in what voters put on their ballot envelope, they say.
Two issue committees formally filed with the Colorado secretary of state’s office to oppose the measure, and voter advocacy organizations have also voiced their opposition, including the League of Women Voters of Colorado, Mi Familia Vota and Common Cause Colorado. The Colorado Democratic Party also opposes it.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office said it does not comment on ballot measures since it runs and certifies elections in the state, even measures like Amendment 84 that would affect her office.
Nonpartisan legislative staff’s analysis of the measure estimated it would increase spending for county clerks by $2.5 million in the first year and up to $1.2 million in future years. The costs include additional work hours for election judges to verify ID numbers, a curing process for voters to fix discrepancies, and a redesign of ballot materials and envelopes. The secretary of state’s office would also see increased costs if the amendment passes.
Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said the organization is still working to understand the logistical and fiscal impact Amendment 84 would have on county clerks, he said.
County clerks would need to redesign their mail ballot envelopes, and it’s unclear what that would cost, Crane said. They’re also working to determine how the amendment would affect different communities, like college students who might not have a Colorado license or know their Social Security number.
The association tries to avoid taking positions on ballot measures since it’s the “independent referee for elections,” Crane said, but occasionally it will. Some clerks have voiced support for the measure, while others are against it.
‘Solution in search of a problem’
Colorado’s existing signature verification process for mail ballots is already secure and recognized as “a gold standard,” Christo Luna, director in Colorado of Mi Familia Vota said.
“Having these extra administrative barriers, strict new ID mandates or additional verification hurdles will only make it harder for eligible Latinos and other citizens to participate, increasing the risk that legitimate ballots are rejected unnecessarily,” Luna said. “We do feel that if this passes, it’s definitely going to be a big problem here in Colorado.”
The new requirement would discourage people from voting, given concerns about their sensitive identification information, Luna said. He said it would also diminish community and government trust.
Aly Belknap, executive director of Colorado Common Cause, said a requirement to place personally identifiable information on a ballot can put Colorado voters at risk of having their identities stolen or compromised. Voters already provide an ID number when they register to vote, she said.
“Amendment 84 is a politically motivated attempt to make it harder for people to vote and will result in eligible Colorado voters having their ballots rejected and votes not counted,” Belknap said in a statement.
It would draw out the time it takes election officials to process and count votes, Belknap said, delaying official election results.
The League of Women Voters of Colorado opposes Amendment 84, because Colorado already has a secure and reliable system to verify mail ballots, Beth Hendrix, executive director of the League, said. All it will do is lead to the rejection of more ballots from eligible voters.
“This measure, it won’t make our elections safer,” Hendrix said. “It just makes them harder to navigate, and it puts eligible Coloradans’ votes at risk over simple clerical errors.”
Hendrix expects the measure would result in a substantial work load increase for election workers, too.
Handwriting varies from person to person, Hendrix said, and the necessity for elections staff to verify ID numbers creates more opportunities for a ballot to be rejected. Colorado has a system in place for voters to “cure” their ballots if a signature is rejected, and a similar system would be needed to cure ID numbers election officials cannot read or match to an eligible voter.
“The whole point seems to be to keep noncitizens from voting,” Hendrix said. “ And noncitizens do not vote. It is illegal for them to do that, and the proven cases where it has happened, I mean, the numbers are so minuscule that they would not threaten any election. So this is a solution in search of a problem.”
Thousands of Coloradans need to cure their ballots through the signature verification process each election, and that number can increase if election officials need to verify another item like an ID number.
The Bell Policy Center, a liberal nonprofit advocacy organization, said in its explanation of the measure that while ID numbers offer a “more objective form of voter verification” than signatures, the requirements “do nothing to improve election security given the lack of evidence of mail voter fraud.”
“However, they do create new barriers to voting for eligible voters who may not have certain forms of ID, including people who are older, low-income, live in rural areas, disabled, and are from communities of color,” the Center’s explainer says.