I received the following letter from the editor of the Colorado Springs Independent which also published the following article that illustrates the problems with voter registration in El Paso County. In my blog I also discuss our own problems with the office in correcting my wife's MIB. Here is a copy of the Governor's letter:

OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR
136 State Capitol Building
Denver, Colorado 80203
(303) 866 -2471
(303) 866 - 2003 fax

Bill Ritter, Jr.
Governor
October 9.2008

Secretary of State Mike Coffman
Colorado Department of State
1700 Broadway
Denver, CO 80290

Dear Secretary Coffman:

I am certain that you share my view that the opportunity to vote in our elections is a fundamental right that, as public officials, we must make every effort to protect. I believe that you also share my commitment to ensuring that all Coloradans who are qualified and wish to exercise this right have every opportunity to do so in November's election. The purpose of this letter is to urge you to take more aggressive steps to correct an error made by your office regarding the deadline for remedying an incomplete voter registration application. A letter prepared by your office and mailed by a number of county clerks incorrectly told over 4,000 registrants with incomplete applications that any deficiencies had to be rectified by October 6, 2008. As you know, under state statute and your own rules, these registrants may correct or supplement their applications at anytime prior to voting. See C.R.S. § 1-2-509(3); Election Rule 2.6.3. Your dissemination of
inaccurate information may disenfranchise hundreds or thousands of Coloradans, an outcome that is unacceptable.

Since Monday my Office has been contacted directly by scores of constituents who are concerned that they and others who thought they registered to vote will be disenfranchised come election day. Members of my staff have been in contact with members of your staff, and I am aware that your office learned last Friday that your initial instruction to county clerks was inaccurate. Further, I understand that your office
is preparing a letter to go to the applicants who were provided inaccurate information, but that this letter will not be completed until Friday of this week at the earliest. or as late as next week. In my view this letter alone is too little, too late. I urge you, as the chief election official in this State, to direct all county election officials to make personal contact by telephone with each potential voter who may have been misled or confused by the earlier communications. I urge you to direct county election officials to include these people on the polling books statewide and to provide these individuals with the opportunity to remedy this technical deficiency at the polls on election day. Finally, I urge you to contact media outlets statewide to ensure that corrected information is communicated as broadly as possible. In short, please ensure that these individuals are notified that they will be afforded every opportunity to remedy any deficiencies in their applications with minimal burden through election day.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time this season that county election officials have issued erroneous communications that have the potential to disenfranchise qualified voters. Last month, EI Paso County Clerk and Recorder Bob Balink publicly acknowledged that he had misinterpreted Colorado law when he sent an erroneous message to Colorado College indicating that students whose parents live in another state and claim them as dependents for tax purposes are not eligible to register to vote in Colorado. Even after correcting his error, Mr. Balink posted on his office's website a caution to college students warning them of potential negative ramifications of registering to vote in Colorado. These actions were, in the first case, wrong and in the other, beyond the scope of his duties as Clerk. His actions are unacceptable and should
be carefully scrutinized by your office.

It is critical that public officials charged with carrying out the law provide the public with accurate information. It is all the more critical when, as here, the wrong information has the impact of discouraging citizens from exercising a fundamental right. Providing the wrong information is inexcusable for many reasons: it disenfranchises
voters; it makes citizens skeptical (especially when the chief election official is on the ballot); and it exposes the State to litigation risk. But most importantly, it risks impacting the outcome of the election.

Our focus as public officials should be on ensuring that every qualified elector in this State is able to exercise his or her right to vote in the upcoming election. This includes encouraging the use of mail-in ballots, as well as expanding access to early voting opportunities. To that end, I ask that you join me in requesting that every county across our State open its polls on weekends during the early voting period, as feasible.
Providing additional access to early voting opportunities across the State, at times most convenient for the working men and women of Colorado, is all the more critical in this year's election when we can expect record turnout and a longer than usual ballot. In addition, I ask that you join me in requesting that those voters who have the flexibility in their schedules to permit them to vote between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. on election day, when lines will be shortest, do so. It is steps like these that will help ensure that all Coloradans who are registered and wish to vote will be able to exercise this fundamental right.

Thank you for your prompt attention to these issues.

Sincerely,
.
Bill Ritter, Jr.

Governor

Having been with the Obama volunteer team since almost the start I have been amazed by what I call "doing everything right" from the start. The most tangible evidence has been the enormous success the Obama campaign has had on registrating new voters in every battleground state, often going back to the primary/caucus days. Huffington Post has a great article today that captures much of how and why this political experience has been wholly different and successful.

Inside the Obama campaign, almost without anyone noticing, an insurgent generation of organizers has built the Progressive movement a brand new and potentially durable people's organization, in a dozen states, rooted at the neighborhood level.

The "New Organizers" have succeeded in building what many netroots-oriented campaigners have been dreaming about for a decade. Other recent attempts have failed because they were either so "top-down" and/or poorly-managed that they choked volunteer leadership and enthusiasm; or because they were so dogmatically fixated on pure peer-to-peer or "bottom-up" organizing that they rejected basic management, accountability and planning. The architects and builders of the Obama field campaign, on the other hand, have undogmatically mixed timeless traditions and discipline of good organizing with new technologies of decentralization and self-organization.

But all that has been in preparation for the final push, also known as GOTV (GET OUT THE VOTE) where I assure you have never seen such a coordinated, massive effort by its decentralized, self-organization on the neighborhood level with the deployment and motivated streamlined organization at the field management level. My experience from earlier campaigns was that a central body, usually at the county level would attempt to loosely coordinate Unions, local party officials and small teams of campaign volunteers into trying to sweep up a small percentage of voters.

The Obama team has other plans. First in states like Colorado or Wisconsin where early voting, (known as Mail-In or Absentee balloting) they focused on making voter contacts where they are both persuading the undecided's, closing the leaners and openly registrating mail in ballot applications for their identified supporters. In Colorado they are seeking to get 75% of their identified support to mail in and/or early vote before the final weekend. It is well known that Mail In balloters vote at higher turnouts than day of the election voters to a degree often in the high 80's to 90%.

This is where the investment into technology comes into play where the Obama team is partnered with the Democratic Party in their nationwide voter database. This tool will allow Obama campaign organizers and volunteer leaders to get daily updates of who has a Mail In Ballot, where then they can focus on GOTV efforts on those who haven't turned in their ballot yet. By the final weekend the organization will know who is left to vote at the polls and then concentrate their entire human resources on contacting those voters and getting them to the polls on Tuesday. Furthermore, they can seek to recruit more volunteers to work on the final weekend if they have voted already.

The final day instead of one county-wide office with a skeleton crew of loosely associated groups haphazardly doing GOTV activities the Obama team will have staging centers all over their field organizations working in their neighborhood areas that they have already worked the last two months in campaign activities. That weekend they will deploy the largest teams of canvassers and phone bankers attempting to reach every remaining voter on their contact list. As the election day unfolds each precinct will have a poll watcher who will report back on an hourly basis who has voted while contact teams will fan out and find those remaining votes.

Then teams who have had great success will be redeployed to problem areas in the final hours making the mad dash to the finish line. At each poll they will also have watchers identfying inappropriate activities like systematic voter challenges and machine issues and other suppression activities. Teams of lawyers will be in place to immediately act on nefarious and questionable activities. The plan holds that if a large majority of voters have already voted with a paper trail (mail in ballot) they can ably respond to the issues in smaller numbers.

This plan is being deployed in each battleground state with local knowledge and where local issues will make adjustments. But the bottom line is that right now the Obama teams are identifying human resources, securing time and facilities and organizing while the campaign is in full swing. It is a dream come true for a political science junkie who has been waiting for the someone to come along and unleash the power of a democracy. The only way the CWC (conservatives without conscience) can success is at the margins, the cannot stem the tidal wave of a voting tsunami of interested and motivated mass voters.

Couple this with the reports that Obama is securing a half hour of prime time on the national networks Wednesday October 29th the final Wednesday using what is rumored to be a outragious record haul of contributions in September this could be the change election we have been waiting for.

Final note: A truly angry white man who happened to be my college roommate, a genuine kool aide drinking Republican Reptile, told me today the market crash is because everyone fears an Obama Administration. Right.....what they fear is losing another 5% before they can sell out.  

My take on McCain and his inability to say it to Obama's face the "Ayer's thing" actually comes down to this when I had a conversation with a close business associate. Let me put some context into my conversation. Jim is currently a CEO/Entreprenuer and former HR senior VP of a former US Fortune 500 company where coming up the ranks as a engineer/manager with another former Fortune 500 firm. I had served him as an executive search headhunter in a number of business initiatives ranging in projects that entailed COO's to director level positions. With that in mind our conversation centered on the leadership personalities of McCain and Obama. Having been in personal presence of Obama I gave him my take, my up close personal assessment of the people and friends of his which were all complimentary---saying in short he is what you see. Extremely smart, pragmatic, genuinely empathetic to those of all social and work class around him---he can down shift in a moment and connect with anyone and yet stay tuned into the overall. He is a real leader of leaders. Which would be confirmed in that by all accounts he is a self-made person having earned every step of his ascension to this current status.

When we discussed McCain it was quite critical. Not that personality disorders have not ascended to top leadership roles especially in business where Jim and I have both worked for same persons with extreme character disorders and flawed judgments and in all cases those individuals have not fared well leading their organizations in extreme challenges. McCain by his pedigree is the son of a 4-star Admiral, who was the son of another 4-star Admiral. When he grew up he wanted for nothing. He was by birth entitled to go to Annapolis (or West Point of the AFA) by appointment. He was not the Eagle Scout kid in the CD who earned everything with effort and dedication and got the Congressman or Senator to sponsor him or her to that first appointment. Through life he has had entitlement after entitlement ascensions. It is as clear as any resume both of us have read. He was squadron leader---why? Name or record...I have talked to those who served with him, it was name only.

Upon returning from a hell hole....he remarried into a fortune. And then he got elected because he had a good story. He then got elected to Senator following a true leader Goldwater who questioned the choice, that is a tell.

Then in 2000 he ran against another entitled candidate, the son of a President and grandson of a true Nazi sympathizer who somehow became Senator. Bush too was entitled to Yale and Harvard by social order and did not earn it. But beat McCain because of politics scorched earth politics.

Now when he is at the true sunset of his life he is running for that believed entitled status in life---President. And yet he is losing and beginning to lose badly to a person who has earned his way all the way to this point. So now McCain is going to take him down on character issues.

Funny thing is that I have walked and lived amongst those entitled circles as Jim. He a self-made corporate jockey from previous simple means, me a middle class ethnic Catholic, we have seen how entitled class react to losing. This is exactly how they totally bespurge any semblance of an opponents character and even make it up---taking the loss personally.

Now finally cowardness. McCain is no different than any person I have heard has talked behind my back of smears and lies and then were polite in public. I have confronted those at times, they run and hide, only to try to get revenge later behind your back. Ultimately it is all about me (McCain). The final tell in this entitled family was Cindy McCain's big speech yesterday about how she wanted Obama to walk in her shoes as she took personally the funding for war and her son. She too took it personally....and was proud of it.

Hey Cindy, I 'll walk in your shoes for a day, just let me spend a few thousand to catch back up on the losses your Party allowed to happen to the financial markets, oh and that goes back to the business I lost when it actually began in '06 as the market has fallen in a steady slide since '07...

Today on the telephone an old Republican friend told me he was rising the white flag. Was it the further dive by the DOW or the continued separation in the polls. Was it another SNL skit that just hit him in the belly or McCain going into the mythical "HELM's DEEP" of smear and sleaze politics.  Maybe it is that 82% of the country thinks the Republicans have taken the nation to the wrong direction.

He sought consoling and I gave him none. I was cold---the nation is broke I said and the Republican decisions, their philosophy, their worldview has brought us there, they lied to us to take us to war---his response "their heart was in the right place."  Heart...Bullsh$t...you don't lead the nation with heart or prejudice or just for partisan gain....you lead correctly. 

"But the free market, what of it", he inquired? Well it is not free, nor is it a market either---it was a gaming house where there was no bank, no rules except don't get caught holding the empty bag.

"I just can't Democrats," he said..."they think they are so smart.". but they are....

You know I voted already today with twenty other motivated Obama supporters at 8 AM. "Yeah, he said, "I got my ballot and could care less. It used t o be that Colorado would always go Republican and now I bet it goes Democrat. Guess I might as well move to Utah or Idaho."

Why? "Because I can't stand Democrats, he said....we are supposed to be right and superior and if you guys are...you will make me think that the common good is good."

First thing there has been a flurry of activity emulating out of the Secretary of State's office regarding registrations which have been brisk this year. In early September an online article in the Colorado Independent it was revealed that an estimated Obama haul of 2-to-1 voter advantage on 118,000 newly registered voters. Voter registration numbers have not been released but in El Paso County, (Colorado Springs or the Red Zone) where over 32,000 newly registered voters have been compiled to October 3rd.

.........................Rep's.......... Dem's ........Unaffiliated 1/25/08...... 153,532 ......    68,689 ..........108,406
6/30/08 ......155,558...... 72,590...........112,630 7/31/08...... 157,047....... 74,774..........113,699 9/02/08...... 157,998....... 75,241..........112,665 10/03/08.... 163,203........ 81,881..........119,085 % ..................44.6%..........22.2%...........32.5%

Ttl Voters 365, 899............ (9% increase)

Where over 17,000 new registrations were recorded in September. Friday Secretary of State Coffman announced all new registrations with clerical errors or misinterpretations in providing residency information they would be purged and then stated they would remain registered but ineligible to vote until they corrected or completed the form. This involves 35,000 new registrants state wide. Today cooler heads prevailed as the lawyers got involved and a remedy was made that those 35,000 registrants would be contacted by their respective County Clerk's offices and they have until Friday October 31st at 5 PM to complete or correct the information.

Watch this:

In El Paso County we voted today, 17 of us were at the County Clerk's office at 8:00 AM to hand deliver our Mail In Ballots while being decked out in our Obama garb. Well they asked us to cover our buttons and shirts because it was an election place. WRONGO again! The lawyers were called and informed the Republican intimidating County Clerk that not until October 28th is it a polling place, it is merely a receiving place. They are watching every step of Mr. Balink who continues to misinform the electorate on registration issues.

In Arapahoe County Colorado, the suburban area of Denver County is now Democratic! One of the top Obama field directors told me they passed the Republicans in this swing county which now has Denver County, Adams County (to the north) and Boulder County (U of CO) as having more Democrats while Douglas, El Paso and Jefferson Counties remain Republican. This ground game is grinding out the Red Zones in Colorado!