It’s been frequently ignored, but a late amendment to Assembly Bill 1436 required officials to conduct a statewide voter review before California’s same-day voter registration law can be implemented. According to the Legislative Counsel’s digest for the bill, it becomes operative “on January 1 of the year following the year in which the Secretary of State certifies that the state has a statewide voter registration database that complies with the requirements of the federal Help America Vote Act of 2002.”

The law was expected to take effect in 2014. However, to be operative for the 2014 general election, the Secretary of State needed to complete its HAVA compliance by December 31, 2013. Last month, Bowen took to Twitter to explain why the state won’t be adopting California’s landmark same-day voter registration law anytime soon.

“That law (CA Elections Code section 2170) will likely take effect in 2016 or later,” Bowen tweeted on Jan. 13.

VoteCal: Voter registration database debacle

The state’s HAVA compliance has been illusory, and the statewide voter registration database project nothing short of a debacle. VoteCal, the project for a new statewide voter registration database, began in 2006 as a replacement for the system built in 1995.

Kim Alexander, president of the California Voter Foundation, has been critical of the project and worries the technology will be out-dated by the time it’s completed.

“VoteCal has been in development since 2006 and already failed once,” Alexander wrote in a November 2013 blog post comparing the project to the federal government’s troubled Obamacare website, HealthCare.gov. “It is not scheduled to be in operation until 2017. It’s hard to imagine the technology they are planning for today will still be state-of-the-art by 2017 and that assumes the project is not further delayed.”

Same-day voter law not as extensive

Same-day voter registration is expected to boost voter turnout. But just how much — that’s up for debate.

“We expect same-day registration to be an important factor in helping to increase everyone’s participation in the electoral process,” said Mindy Romero of the California Civic Engagement Project at UC Davis. “In general, states with same-day registration laws have shown higher turnout rates. It should be noted though that California’s same day registration law is potentially not as extensive of a reform as similar laws in other states.”

In California, a provisional ballot will be issued to same-day voters and counted only upon later verification.

Secretary of State Candidates: Yet another tech problem

Bowen is term-limited and cannot run for re-election. Three of the candidates running to replace Bowen as Secretary of State criticized her office for the voter database delays.

“This is yet another example of the Secretary of State’s problems with technology,” said Republican Pete Peterson, who serves as executive director at Pepperdine University’s Davenport Institute for Public Engagement and Civic Leadership.

Democrat Secretary of State candidate Derek Cressman, a former vice-president of the good government group Common Cause, said the implementation delay was further proof that better management is needed at the top elections office.

“This is why it is imperative that our next Secretary has both the policy background and management experience to implement a new registration database without further delays,” said Cressman, a supporter of same-day voter registration.

Other reforms delayed with VoteCal

Same-day voter registration isn’t the only electorial reform put on hold by the state’s vote registration database. Other laws being delayed include the ability for 17 year olds to pre-register to vote and the email delivery of a sample ballot.

“Same-day registration is one of numerous election reforms enacted in recent years in California that are on hold as we wait for the state’s new voter registration database to be built and deployed,” Alexander said. “California is one of only two states with no statewide voter information lookup tools. These are online tools that let voters check if they are registered to vote or registered at an old address, find their polling place, check the status of their vote-by-mail ballot and see what contests will be on their ballot.”

At least one Secretary of State candidate has experience sidestepping bureaucratic delays related to the voter registration database. In 2011, State Senator Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, authored the state’s online voter registration law. Yee’s hugely successful SB397, which helped register more than a million new voters in 2012, was drafted because an earlier measure — SB381 in 2008, by State Sen. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello — couldn’t take effect because of VoteCal delays.

“I look forward to the day in California when eligible voters will have the opportunity to walk into their local polling location, and immediately be able to cast a ballot and participate in our democracy,” Yee said.

By Katy Grimes

The historic recall election underway in Colorado of Senate President John Morse is shaping up to be a template for other grassroots groups unhappy with elected officials. Morse is facing a recall for his support of controversial gun control laws, including expanded background checks and limits on the ammunition gun magazines can hold.

This is the first recall election of a Colorado legislator in the state’s history. Morse became the subject of the recall because of a bill he authored holding owners of assault weapons liable for damages caused by their guns, along with other anti-gun bills. While he eventually backed off on the liability bill, voters’ outrage morphed into a recall.

Don’t mess with the Second Amendment

What started as a group of Second Amendment supporters unhappy with a top Colorado Democratic lawmaker over the passage of strict gun control legislation has grown into a full-fledged, serious-as-a-bullet recall election.

Helping out the recall supporters, the Basic Freedom Defense Fund formed a committee for recalling Morse, representing state organizations, local businesses and many volunteers.

“He broke his oath to protect and uphold the Constitution by championing citizen disarmament legislation including a Draconian standard capacity magazine ban and a ‘universal background check’ bill,” BFDF said on its website. “Both of these are unenforceable without registration and even 55 of Colorado’s 62 sheriffs have filed a lawsuit to have these overturned.”

The group recently turned in double the signatures needed to force the recall election of Democratic state Senate President John Morse.

Who is helping Morse?

America Votes, a non-profit campaign group created to push progressive policies and candidates, of which New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is a major backer, released a video in support of Morse recently. But a campaign finance report filed for the Morse supporters, “A Whole Lot of People for John Morse,” shows that America Votes is  funded by  every major left-wing special interest group in the country.

In addition to Bloomberg, America Votes supporters includes the AFL-CIO, AFSCME, the SEIU, Emily’s list, Planned Parenthood, the National Education Association, United Food and Commercial Workers, Sierra Club, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Progressive Majority, and many more.

I talked with Grassroots Radio Colorado host Ken Clark about the recall. Clark has been working diligently on the campaign to oust Morse, and told me they gathered more than 16,000 signatures, which await verification by the secretary of state’s office. Clark said if 7,200 of them are valid signatures from voters in Morse’s district, a recall election will take place.

However, Clark said they are up against a powerful political money machine, backed by Bloomberg. “It’s a national agenda, and Colorado is ground zero,” Clark said. The agenda plan is to kill off the Red States one by one, according to Clark. All told, these progressive-liberal groups have spent a great deal of money in Colorado, and managed to turn a solid red state into a blue state in only a few years, he said.

How a red state turned blue

In 2008, Colorado Democrats comprised 31.2 percent of registered voters; Republicans 34.14 percent, and Independents 34.19 percent, according to Adam Schrager and Rob Witwer, authors of “The Blueprint: How the Democrats won Colorado.”

According to the book, “Yet, in 2004 and 2006, the Dems took out the Republican governor, turned both state houses blue, as well as a U.S. Senate seat, and two U.S. House seats.”

Continuing with the plan, the Colorado Legislature recently passed bills to vote by mail, as well as allowing same-day voter registration. According to Clark, both bills were actively supported by America Votes, which claims to “help eliminate some of the confusion for voters at the polls.”

The bills also eliminate the category of “inactive” voters, which are regularly purged from the state voter rolls. But the most chilling aspect of the new law is citizen watchers of the elections will now be excluded by these new laws. Ballots will be handled exclusively by Colorado’s county clerks behind closed doors, out of the public eye.

CA going in the wrong direction

These are tactics used in California as well. As some states have enacted voter ID laws,  California has headed in the opposite direction. In September, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a same-day voter registration bill, and an online voter registration bill. But many say online and same-day voter registration is a Democrat election guarantee, as it just makes it easier to commit voter fraud.

“Last November, Colorado had almost 10,000 attempted fraudulent votes,” a Washington Times story recently reported. “Half of those were late registrants. Of the other 5,000 ineligible voters, 700 had attempted to vote twice, 2,600 were not residents of the state, and 50 were felons not eligible to vote.”

This is reminiscent of the recent Senate District 16 Special Election between Republican Andy Vidak, and Democrat Leticia Valdez, which I recently wrote about. The immediate post-election results showed Vidak received 51.9 percent of the vote to Valdez’s 43 percent. But three days later, 6,500 provisional ballots appeared, taking Vidak’s share down below the needed 50 percent margin to avoid a runoff.

A provisional ballot is used when there are questions about a given voter’s identity, address or eligibility; or the voter’s ballot has already been recorded.

A Whole Lot of People For John Morse

The groups supporting A Whole Lot of People For John Morse all claim to be nonprofits. Yet Morse’s anti-recall campaign received huge cash infusions from three groups: Sixteen Thirty Fund, Citizens for Integrity, and Mainstream Colorado.

All three groups have ties to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns organization, now quite influential in Colorado politics, according to Clark.

“Yet isn’t it ironic there were 25 shootings in New York City last weekend, a gun-free zone,” Clark said.

Clark said there are other states in the crosshairs of America Votes and the Bloomberg groups, and he warned, “Texas is next.”