About 88 percent of the approximately 1,400 suspected noncitizens run through a federal database by the Colorado secretary of state’s office were determined to be U.S. citizens — and are eligible to vote.
The Department of Homeland Security is continuing to review the remaining approximately 168 people to determine whether any of them also are citizens, said Michael Hagihara, voter registration manager for the secretary of state’s office.
The results of the checks so far were released during a public hearing Wednesday on how Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s office will move forward with determining whether anyone still suspected of being a noncitizen should be removed from Colorado’s voter rolls.
That process could begin as early as next week. Gessler’s office is proposing that either he or his deputy secretary of state would preside over a hearing on each case. They also would make the final judgment as to whether the person may legally cast a ballot — a proposal critics called “alarming.”
Martha Tierney, an attorney who represents the Colorado Democratic Party, noted that the number of voters still in question equals less than one-thousandth of 1 percent of Colorado’s approximately 3.5 million registered voters. She suggested the Republican secretary of state’s office may have better ways to spend its time with just over two months to go until the November election.
“This is a witch hunt, and you should be embarrassed that you are going down this road,” Tierney said.
But Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert argued there is good reason to move forward.
She said county clerks have told Gessler’s staff “countless stories” about noncitizens who were unknowingly registered to vote when they got their driver’s licenses and who have gone to their local elections office in tears because they didn’t realize that casting a ballot — a felony in Colorado if the voter isn’t a citizen — could jeopardize their chances of becoming naturalized.
She indicated the office is doing those people a favor by notifying them and repeated Gessler’s argument that ensuring all voters are eligible helps instill confidence in elections.
“You characterize this as a witch hunt, but there’s a very different side that is not being reported,” Staiert said in response to Tierney. “That is the side that we are trying to maintain the integrity of the rolls, and also to the benefit of many people out there who may cast votes unknowingly.”
Six people representing about a dozen organizations spoke against the proposal. No one attended to speak in favor.
Gessler’s office mailed letters to about 3,900 suspected noncitizens earlier this month, asking them to prove their citizenship or voluntarily withdraw their voter registration. Those 3,900 were people who at some point showed noncitizen documentation, such as a “green card,” when they applied for a Colorado driver’s license and who also are registered to vote.
The office was able to check only 1,400 of those names in the federal database because it had alien registration numbers — which were required to run the check — only for those people, said Richard Coolidge, director of communication for Gessler’s office.
Coolidge and Hagihara said Wednesday that no further action will be taken on the approximately 2,500 people who were mailed letters but whose names could not be submitted to the Department of Homeland Security database. But at least some of those people already have withdrawn from the voter rolls or have submitted proof of citizenship, Coolidge said. The office could release those exact numbers Thursday.
State Sen. Pat Steadman, D-Denver, said the state legislature already has established a process for someone to challenge a voter’s eligibility. That involves county clerks holding hearings and puts the burden of proof on the challenger, not the voter.
Steadman said Gessler’s proposal seemed to do the opposite.
“It appears to sort of take a ‘show me your papers’ type approach of putting the burden on the voter to prove that they are in fact eligible to vote,” he said. “I think that’s something that should give us all pause.”
Democratic elections attorney Mark Grueskin also questioned whether voters would perceive Gessler — a Republican who did not attend Wednesday’s hearing because he is a delegate to the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla. — or his chief deputy to be impartial enough to be both the arbiter and the de facto prosecutor at any hearing, and what impact that might have on voter confidence.
Staiert, a former municipal judge, said she didn’t know how voters would feel, adding, “I don’t know the voter, and the voter doesn’t know me.”
Samantha Meiring, 37, of Firestone, was one of the people who received Gessler’s letter.
An immigrant from South Africa, Meiring became a citizen in early 2010 and voted in Colorado that fall. She said she found it “absolutely ridiculous” that she was being asked to “jump through additional hoops.”
“The people who legally immigrate go through all the legal process to do so, and pay all the thousands of dollars in fees, are the last people on Earth who are going to knowingly commit a felony by voting when they’re legally not citizens,” she said. “I think you’re chasing people that don’t need to be chased.”
Sara Burnett: 303-954-1661, sburnett@denverpost.com or twitter.com/sara_burnett
