An article from the Denver Post highlighting Colorado’s waiver request reveals that the supposed lack of time between the Colorado primary and General election to send ballots to overseas voters is not actually the impediment to enfranchising remote military voters.  In fact, the article states, “Colorado’s Aug. 10 primary leaves 84 days to comply. However, under Colorado law, election officials can wait until 32 days before the election to deliver ballots to election offices.”  

So despite a fairly early Primary and plenty of time to hand-draw the ballots and print every single ballot with a laser printer, the Colorado SOS and election officials will simply wait… and wait… for 84 days until day 30 or so to send the ballots and wonder aloud why hundreds or even thousands of Colorado overseas military voters are disenfranchised when they come back late.  One can almost imagine some ignoring the problem, as they did in Minnesota – “isn’t that a shame” and then “move right along, there is nothing to see here!” 

It appears that Colorado is more than able to meet the 45 day deadline with room to spare.  Perhaps Colorado believes its state law reigns supreme over the federal MOVE Act or that they can wait out a potential DOJ lawsuit until they decide to find the political will to change the law.  Perhaps at the February NASS meeting, the Colorado SOS interpreted DOJ’s “out of context” comments and subsequently failed to convey the importance of the military voting issue to the Legislature.  Certainly, Colorado must believe that with DOJ on the sideline, this 84 day period just may somehow qualify under the “undue hardship” exemption.  While the Colorado Legislature found the issue of medical marijuana regulation a top priority to deal with in 2010, they apparently failed to conform their state law to the 45 days mailing time for absentee ballots 

Also noteworthy in the article:  “Bob Carey, federal voting assistance program director for the Department of Defense, said waiver requests have been received from Washington, New York, Hawaii, Alaska, the Virgin Islands, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.  The Military Postal Service Agency urges military voters in Iraq and Afghanistan to send ballots back at least 28 days before an election, and voters at other overseas military installations at least 21 days in advance.”

 Colorado is sending its ballots 30 days prior to the election.  Director Carey has stated that experts have concluded that takes 28 days one way, each way, for military voters in Iraq and Afghanistan and Iraq and 21 days each way for overseas installations.  In spite of these facts, Colorado has submitted a waiver indicating that sufficient time has been provided for its overseas military voters to receive and return the ballots in only 30 days.  Under the scenario above with the timelines articulated by the Federal Voting Assistance Program itself, these voters will have just 2-9 days to return the ballot despite an estimated return time of 21-28 days.  And if the thousands of members serving in the Armed Forces from Colorado don’t get their ballot back in time, we will have repeated the disaster of 17,000 cancelled overseas votes as in 2008.