Colorado’s Secretary of State Goes RogueDespite just reaching a settlement with voter rights groups on Wednesday, Colorado’s Secretary of State Mike Coffman has continued to purge voters from the roll, causing a judge to issue a cease and desist order.
Earlier today, Coffman told the Rocky Mountain News that the settlement “still allowed him to remove voters from the state rolls when he found duplicate names, people who moved or deceased voters.” An interpretation voter rights groups have roundly dismissed.
“The Court unambiguously stated that Colorado’s voter cancellation practices violated federal law,” Myrna Perez counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice — a party in the suit — told TPMmuckraker. “The Secretary of State and Colorado counties must provide the agreed upon safeguards to protect the voters adversely affected by the illegal practices.”
The suit against Coffman alleged that more than 35,000 voters were purged from the rolls based on a faulty system for identifying illegitimate voters, and within 90 days of the election — both of which violate the federal Voting Rights Act. The settlement allowed for 20,000 purged voters to be put back on the rolls and cast provisional ballots in Tuesday’s election.