Notice of Temporary Adoption and Statement of Emergency Justification for Rules Concerning Public Records Requested Pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA)

Notice of Temporary Adoption

Pursuant to C.R.S. 24-72-309(1)(a) and the rulemaking provisions of the State Administrative Procedures Act, C.R.S. 24-4-103, I, Ginette Dennis, Colorado Secretary of State, do hereby adopt and give NOTICE of the temporary adoption this ninth day of May 2006 of “Rules Concerning the Public Records Requested Pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act”, which are attached hereto. These rules shall take effect May 9, 2006.

Ginette Dennis
Colorado Secretary of State

William A. Hobbs
Deputy Secretary of State

Statement of Emergency Justification

This statement pertains to the temporary adoption of Rules Concerning Public Records Requested Pursuant to the Colorado Open Records Act (CORA).

These rules are based on the Colorado Open Records Act, Sections 24-72-201 to 24-72-309, C.R.S. The Secretary of State therefore finds that in order to ensure the protection of public records and the prevention of unnecessary interference with the regular discharge of the duties of the Secretary of State’s office it is necessary to adopt these rules.

In particular, the Secretary of State finds that most requests filed with the Secretary of State under the Colorado Open Records Act are for election-related records in the custody of the Elections Division, that many of those requests are voluminous and require many hours of labor to locate the requested records and make them available for inspection, that the Elections Division is already extremely busy and will become increasingly busy with election-related duties because of the upcoming general and primary elections, that it is important that open records requests not interfere with the ability of the Elections Division to carry out its regular duties in accordance with the statutory mandates and time deadlines of the State Election Code, and that the immediate adoption of these rules is therefore necessary in order to ensure that requests for records do not unduly interfere with the regular discharge of the duties of the Secretary of State.