Credibility In Ashes: Zero Prosecutions Of The “Gessler 155″

Scott Gessler.

The Grand Junction Sentinel's Charles Ashby published a story this weekend that, in a perfect world, would mean the end of higher political aspirations by Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

Since taking over the Secretary of State’s Office in 2011, Scott Gessler has loudly and repeatedly claimed that non-citizens were illegally voting in Colorado elections.

The Republican, who has long called for a new law requiring people to show proof of citizenship before voting, made national news when he went before Congress that year making a blockbuster statement that 16,270 non-citizens were registered to vote in Colorado and 5,000 of them actually had cast ballots in the 2010 state elections, when Democrat Michael Bennet narrowly defeated Republican Ken Buck for the U.S. Senate…

After years of critics demanding that Gessler forward names of suspected non-citizens whom he said were on the voter rolls, his office referred a list of 155 suspected non-citizen voters in July to 15 district attorneys across the state, recommending prosecution and issuing a strongly worded statement saying the list was proof the state’s election system is “vulnerable.”

A check by The Daily Sentinel with those district attorneys over the past two weeks, however, revealed that none of the referrals led to criminal prosecutions, though some still are under investigation. The analysis also showed that although some of the non-citizen voters did cast ballots in at least one election going as far back as 2004, the preponderance of the other voters actually were citizens who legally had the right to vote.

Gessler's quest to uncover evidence of "noncitizen voters" has consumed a tremendous amount of his and his staff's time since taking office in 2011. In April of 2011, Gessler testified before a congressional committee, claiming his "studies" had "found" that some 5,000 noncitizens had voted in Colorado in the 2010 elections. That number was quickly debunked by showing that over 30,000 Colorado residents had become citizens during the time period Gessler examined, easily accounting for his alarming figure. In 2012, Gessler sent letters to 4,000 voters he "suspected" of voting illegally. Westword reported that round of letters resulted in the cancellation of 88 registrations, few if any of which had ever actually voted. Most such errors were attributed to simple misunderstandings and errors made by clerks.

In Ashby's story this weekend, we read about a few more such anecdotal cases–a Pueblo County voter from Belgium who voted in 2006 as one example, who cancelled her registration after realizing she couldn't vote. Not only did the local district attorney find no intent to commit fraud, the statute of limitations was years expired. Of the 155 cases Gessler recommended for prosecution, a few cases remain under investigation, but there have been no prosecutions. We'll know in the next few weeks if any result.

Regardless of how those few remaining "cases" end up, you can't excuse the present state of this "investigation"–complete failure, a totally unjustified return on Gessler's investment of manpower and time–after the breathless and shocking claims Gessler originally made. Gessler originally asserted, without any "maybe," that 5,000 noncitizens voted in 2010. When you compare the things that Gessler said right after taking office with the reality three years later of zero prosecutions, it is obvious that Gessler simply has no credibility.

How this man retains any viability for another run at political office is truly baffling to us.

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Is Gessler on board with his own office’s election rule that you must live in a district to vote there?

(What’s up with the Caldara investigation? – Promoted by Colorado Pols)

Back in August, Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office issued an election rule stating that voters must reside in the same district in which they vote, and, in case someone like Jon Caldara was wondering, Gessler’s rule stated that “intent to move, in and of itself, does not establish residence.”

This sounded sensible to people who believe in representative government.

But about a week later, the residency rule was rescinded by Gessler’s office for no apparent reason. It was part of a set of election rules, one of which was thrown out by a judge, but Gessler wasn’t required to dump the residency rule. But he did anyway.

About a month later, people who believe in representative government were surprised when Gessler stepped up to a talk-show microphone on KNUS radio and proclaimed that under Colorado’s new election law, “you don’t have to live in the district in order to be able to vote there, which I think is just absurd.”

Now, even people who don’t believe in representative government were puzzled, because in August Gessler’s office had arrived at the exact opposite conclusion about the new law.

The eternal question: What would Gessler say next?

Well, on Oct. 9, the residency rule was re-issued by Gessler’s office in almost the exact same words as before, stating that “intent to move to a new district or county, in and of itself, is not enough to establish residency.”

The rule also says: “An elector may not register to vote in a new district or county unless he or she has already moved and established his or her primary residence in the new district or county.”

Just like before, this makes sense to most everyone, except maybe Jon Caldara and…we don’t know if Gessler’s on board with it, even though it emanated from his office.

Will Gessler again be asked to step up to a talk-radio microphone and explain if he still thinks, like he said before, that Colorado’s new election law mandates that “you don’t have to live in the district in order to be able to vote there?”

How could he possibly think so, now that his office has twice concluded otherwise? I’ll be sitting by my radio, waiting for his answer on KOA, KNUS, KLZ, or wherever.

Actually, wouldn’t it be fun if Jon Caldara asked Gessler about it on his Sunday KHOW show?

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Gessler, Vote Fraud Crusader, Loves Caldara’s Vote Fraud

I know it SEEMS like vote fraud, and I would know…

Denver fixture columnist Mike Littwin, now writing for the Colorado Independent, caught up with Secretary of State Scott Gessler at yesterday's event announcing Gessler's gubernatorial campaign. Doing what apparently none of the fancy-pants mainstream media outlets could not, Littwin asked Gessler the same question we would have: what do you think of Boulder resident Jon Caldara's vote fraud scandal in Colorado Springs?

Gessler, who is Colorado’s top elections official and who was, in a previous life, an election lawyer, said he was not offended by Caldara’s stunt. He was all in.

“I think Caldara did a really good job of bringing attention to this,” he said. “I think he really did.

“I think he handled it in the right way in the sense of not casting a vote. I mean, he cast a ballot, but it was blank, so nobody could accuse him of doing something wrong. And it sounds like he’s staying in El Paso.” [Pols emphasis]

Apparently, Gessler hadn't heard the news that Caldara had crassly invoked the recent flooding as an excuse to "keep Boulder as a permanent home." The legal analysis we've heard strongly suggests that Caldara did not "handle it in the right way" at all, and the "blank ballot" won't protect him–as reported yesterday, the Attorney General is now investigating. Presumably, Gessler didn't know that either.

After watching Gessler turn over hundreds of names to local law enforcement to investigate on dubious suspicion of "noncitizen voting," and seeing those investigations time and time again turn up nothing, it's of course reasonable to question Gessler's judgment. At the very least, why would this front-to-back documented case of vote fraud not be worthy of the same scrutiny Gessler expected DAs to give all the perfectly legal voters he turned over to them? Despite all the willful ignorance he's shown over the years, we do believe Gessler is smarter than this, and knows perfectly well that breaking the law as a "stunt" is still breaking the law.

Especially coming from the state's chief elections official, Gessler's lack of concern about Caldara's actions is preposterous–and God help the Gessler for Governor campaign if Caldara does get indicted, after Gessler praised this felonious little "stunt."

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Gessler To Morse: Let Me “Edit” That For You

As the Colorado Independent’s Tessa Cheek reports:

ON WEDNESDAY, Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office signed off on ballot language for the state’s first-ever lawmaker recall election, where Democratic state Senate President John Morse will effectively face Republican City Council Member Bernie Herpin.

The Morse campaign doesn’t like the ballot language and believes the Republican secretary of state may have worked to tilt the scales in the race, stripping out language Morse submitted to be included.

But the Herpin campaign argues the Secretary didn’t go far enough. In a release the campaign charges that, in the language Morse submitted to the secretary, he “violated state law” by making false assertions about Herpin and about Basic Freedom Defense Fund — the group organized to promote recall of Morse mainly in response to his support for gun-control legislation last spring.

The recall campaigns, launched months ago, have been characterized by regularly erupting similar back-and-forths and there may be many more to come over the four weeks leading to Election Day on September 10.

Specifically, reports the Independent, GOP Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office “edited” two statements from Morse’s ballot language–an allegation about a “junket” de facto opponent Bernie Herpin took as a Colorado Springs city councilor, and an accusation that Herpin “opposed criminal background checks, a position so extreme it would allow felons and domestic abusers to buy guns.” We don’t know very much about the first allegation–we will soon enough–but on the matter of Herpin’s opposition to background checks, we can tell you that he is the founder of the Pikes Peak Firearms Coalition. That organization certainly appears to oppose background checks:

Finally, we firmly believe that exercising one’s right to bear arms should not justify being identified on any government list, as precedence has shown time and again that agreeing to “reasonable controls” has only resulted in the continuing and irrevocable infringement by the government on the rights of the individual. [Pols emphasis]

Also, you can read Herpin’s own guest editorial against 2000's Amendment 22, the initiative closing the “background check loophole” at gun shows passed with overwhelming voter support after the mass shooting at Columbine High School. It’s not available online anymore, but it’s not equivocal:

First, there is no such thing as a “gun-show loophole.” [Pols emphasis] Federal law explicitly and intentionally exempts the private sale of firearms from federal regulation. Lawmakers recognize that sales and exchanges of goods and services between private individuals are not subject to the control or scrutiny of the government. They also recognize that such laws are unenforceable at best and threats to personal liberty at worst.

This would seem to validate the charge that Herpin “opposes criminal background checks.”

Once you accept that, then yes, Gessler’s “edit” is a real problem. And Gessler’s well-earned reputation for shenanigans as the state’s chief elections officer makes it pretty easy to throw the penalty flag.

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Gessler Helps Debunk “Gypsy Voters” Mythology?

We've been talking for a few days now about allegations being made by conservatives regarding Colorado's voter registration process after the passage of House Bill 1303, the Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act–which will be in effect for the first time for the recall special elections in two Colorado Senate districts next month. Following some alarmist (and unfounded) comments from GOP Douglas County Clerk Jack Arrowsmith about the supposed possibility of voters being 'bused' into these districts to take advantage of a 'loophole' in the new law, the story spread rapidly through the conservative news ecosystem.

Actual voter fraud is extremely rare, of course, but the conservative coverage of this supposed 'loophole,' implying that it may be legal for voters to converge on these Senate districts from across the state, might actually lead to some number of Republican voters trying to fraudulently vote in these recall elections. We have tried our best to discourage that, but regret we may not have as large a conservative readership as the Daily Caller.

Yesterday, the Colorado Springs Independent's J. Adrian Stanley did a great job debunking the story:

While rare, fraud has always existed. Some people have attempted to register more than once using fake birthdays and Social Security numbers; others have voted more than once under one registration, perhaps by sending a mail ballot, then showing up later at a polling place.

[EL Paso County Clerk spokesman Ryan] Parsell says those types of cheaters are generally caught, and their names turned over to the local district attorney for investigation. But he worries that now, there's another way to game the system: A voter may drive in from an outside district, change his address on his registration form, and vote. Later, he says, a person can change his address back and say he intended to move, but never did…

This scenario has gotten attention on the Internet, where it's often derogatorily referred to as "gypsy voting."

…But there are a few reasons why this may turn out better than it sounds. First, according to an email from Gessler's office to Williams' office, [Pols emphasis] a person must have already moved into a district in order to vote in it.

"The 'intention' language is only relevant after the elector moved," it says.

Second, the same email confirms, clerks can and should refer any fishy behavior to the local DA's office. Ortiz, for instance, says he will track all last-minute change-of-address voters. If the address reverts in the coming months, he'll refer that voter to the DA…

And there's yet another reason why widespread fraud seems unlikely: A last-minute address change has actually long been possible. Ortiz notes that the process was previously called "emergency voting," and it wasn't popular.

The bottom line, as the Independent reports and we said days ago, is that all such misrepresentation is against the law, and anyone who actually votes using a fake residence is committing a felony. The biggest reason there is so much more discussion of vote fraud than there are actual cases is that the penalties are really very severe relative to the infraction–and that is by design. Individual, anecdotal cases of fraud consistently boil down to that one person's mistake or misguided decision, not coordinated plots to swing an election.

Again, unless a bunch of Republicans read this Daily Caller story and decide to attempt just that.

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