Dems lodge complaints about clerk
The El Paso County Clerk and Recorder's Office accidentally forwarded three mail-ballot requests to media outlets after receiving them by fax during the past week, a glitch being blamed on a technical malfunction.
It's one of several incidents Democrats said in a press release "cause alarm and frustration in the community" due to Republican Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink's actions.
In the release, Sen. John Morse, Rep. Michael Merrifield and state party chair Pat Waak accused Balink of:
• "Intentionally seeking to intimidate young voters" by specifying to Colorado College students, many of whom are from other states, the consequences of registering to vote in El Paso County. He also provided "misinformation and half-truths" to students, Democrats charge.
• Hiring a lawyer who works for the state Republican party to give legal advice about voter registration rules.
Democratic party spokesman Matt Farrauto called Balink's actions "a disturbing pattern of behavior."
"It appears it ranges from incompetent to stubborn to partisan," he said in an interview, "and we feel Coloradans deserve confidence in how their election officials conduct nonpartisan duties."
Balink said his office is eager to resolve all complaints about election procedure.
"Anybody who has legitimate concerns about the election process should bring them up, and our office has always addressed every one of them," he said. "We welcome anybody who's interested in assuring fair, open and honest elections."
He said his office was alarmed by the fax malfunction and is working to find out what happened.
The first incident, involving an overseas voter, happened Oct. 10, Balink said.
The second incident involved two requests faxed Tuesday. Within 10 minutes of learning about the problem Tuesday afternoon, he said, the errant fax machine was shut down and an investigation launched.
Balink said his office has been in touch with two of the three voters and that they're not upset. His office sent a letter to the overseas voter but hasn't talked to that person, he said.
One of the two ballot requests received Tuesday contained a nine-digit Social Security number, as did the one received Monday. The other had only the last four digits, election officials said.
The problem stems from a function of the fax machine that allows it to "hunt" for another internal fax machine to route incoming faxes to when a backlog arises, Balink said.
Instead of routing the three mail-ballot requests to another clerk and recorder fax machine like it's supposed to do, the requests were sent to a list of media fax numbers that are contained in the fax machine and used to disseminate press releases.
He said the county's information technology workers are working with the phone provider to find out what went wrong.
The Colorado Springs Business Journal was among the 10 or 11 media outlets to receive the faxes.
"We were quite surprised," Journal publisher Lon Matejczyk wrote in an e-mail to The
Gazette. "When I called the clerk and recorder's office to let them know, the lady didn't know what to tell me." He said his staff shredded the mail-ballot requests.
Balink said he was glad for one thing: that the faxes went to media outlets who can be trusted not to misuse the information.
The Gazette was unable to reach one of the voters involved for which a name was provided by the Democrats.
Addressing the CC issue, Balink said his office hasn't tried to deter students from voting.
"There's not one student at CC that has been turned down," he said.
He said he hired Zakhem-Atherton LLC of Denver to review voting and tax laws after attorney John Zakhem offered to look into the matter. Zakhem-Atherton does legal work for the state GOP.
Balink said he paid Zakhem, an expert in election law, $1,100 "to help clarify consequences for anybody registering to vote."
"We don't hire anybody based on their party affiliation," he said.
Balink said the advice given to CC students is accurate, including that registering here means they establish residency in Colorado, requiring them to register their vehicles and obtain drivers licenses in El Paso County.
He also has advised that establishing residency through voter registration might impact whether students' parents can claim them on tax returns as a dependent.
Balink sent one student a written explanation of voter registration consequences signed by the Zakhem-Atherton firm. The memo notes tax consequences, how registering in another state could affect health and car insurance eligibility under their parents' policies, and whether they'll have to pay out-of-state tuition if they attend graduate school in their home states.
The memo ends by saying, "While groups that work to increase involvement in the electoral process should be applauded, blindly pushing students to register in Colorado, even when doing so could be to their detriment, is wrong. Registering out-of-state students in Colorado without fully disclosing the potential impacts of such registration borders on exploitation."
The precinct within which Colorado College is located has 815 Democrats, 79 Republicans and 894 unaffiliated registered voters, records show.
Zakhem said he offered to outline the law for Balink after he was contacted by the state Democratic Party's legal counsel who said Balink's earlier advice to students about voter registration wasn't accurate.
"I told him I thought the interpretation of the statute was incorrect, and I wanted to help him with it," he said.
Farrauto said the Democrats also take issue with Balink's reduction of early-voting sites from six to three since 2006.
Balink said since the volume of mail ballots has skyrocketed, early voting activity has dwindled, leading to the curtailment.
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Contact the writer: 636-0238 or pam.zubeck@gazette.com
