As usual, the depth of insight and the power of the information just reaches out and grabs your attention.
What started out for Marilyn Marks as a simple hometown request to view public information ballots has turned into an epic proportions battle to secure all Coloradans rights to election transparency.
Yes, a must read.
"Journalists may initially disbelieve that this story could be taking place in 21st century Colorado, while Colorado is in the national spotlight as a 2012 swing state. However, the attached memo should provide adequate documentation of the developing situation here.
Election officials are not only trying to roll the FOIA clock back 40 years, but far worse, many are claiming that their election processes can trace voted ballots back to the individual voters, violating Colorado’s constitutional guarantee of anonymous, untraceable ballots, which assure voter privacy. It is alarming that election officials in numerous counties unhesitatingly acknowledge their ability to know how individual voters voted. Their claims are being made in an effort to promote state legislation to close down public and press access to voted ballots, on the theory that if ballots are open public documents, the press and public, (not just government insiders), will know how voters voted.
The co-authors and I hope that you will be as concerned as we are about the threats to voters’ civil rights and the threatened dilution of the media’s first amendment rights and the public’s ability to verify its elections. Please contact any of us for more information.
Thank you in advance for your attention to this issue."
(Marilyn Marks)
(Marilyn Marks)
(Read this terrific memo? Click title. Comment to discuss)
"Truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."
