Secretary Williams fights to protects Coloradans' votes

DENVER, Oct. 25, 2017 -- The U.S. District Court in Denver late last week gave the greenlight on a mutually agreed upon path forward in a lengthy legal dispute surrounding whether Colorado’s presidential electors may ignore the votes of 2.9 million Coloradans when they cast their vote for president.

The dispute stems from the 2016 presidential election, in which a handful of electors violated their oath by attempting to cast their electoral vote for a candidate other than Hillary Clinton in violation of a state law that requires electors to vote for the candidate who won the state’s popular vote. At that election, Secretary Wayne Williams, following multiple court orders, removed one elector in Colorado who attempted to cast a vote for John Kasich.

"We look forward to the court’s ruling. We’re confident that Colorado’s law will be upheld, allowing us to get back to the business of administering Colorado’s elections and protecting the vote of its citizens," Williams said.

"This case is not about electors voting their conscience. These electors were attempting to trade their votes with electors in other states which would disenfranchise every Colorado voter."

Despite the fact that the same federal court ruled against the plaintiffs’ suit nearly a year ago, the secretary of state agreed to allow this new filing to go forward in an expedited fashion, with a few stipulations. First, the plaintiffs’ conceded that the secretary could not be sued in his individual capacity and they agreed to drop all demands for damages and attorney fees above $1. The secretary agreed, in return, to waive any immunity that he could have asserted. Though the secretary was well within his rights to argue that the current complaint be barred, he believes that "ultimately, we just want an answer to the constitutional question at issue before the 2020 presidential election and this is the least expensive and most efficient path."

And the secretary recognizes that an expedient resolution of the question is in Coloradans’ best interest. If Colorado’s law is held to be unconstitutional and the electors’ duties go from ministerial to more substantive, the secretary will have to propose legislation to, among other things, change how electors are appointed to and identified on the ballot, guard against vote buying and selling, and protect against other corruption.