A Few Questions for Scott Gessler

Statement of C. Ray Drew
Executive Director
ACLU of Colorado

As Colorado’s Secretary of State, it is Scott Gessler’s job to supervise and administer our state’s elections. This is no small task, as voting is the essence of democracy. That is why we find it puzzling that he has decided to sue the City of Denver for helping its eligible voters cast their ballots. Instead of ensuring that Coloradans can vote, our Secretary of State is taking the unprecedented step of spending public money to keep the public from voting.

Why? Gessler leaves us guessing.

His actions would make it harder for lawful voters to cast their ballot simply because they haven’t voted in the last year. Maybe they were out of the country and did not request an absentee ballot. Perhaps they were serving in the military or were ill or simply felt uninspired by the choices available to them on the ballot. There are many reasons that voters cannot or do not cast a vote.

But to go as far as to file a lawsuit to prevent them from receiving a ballot -- to make it HARDER to vote -- leaves us questioning the commitment of the Secretary of State to the mission of his own office – to ensure the integrity of elections. What is more integral to an election than ensuring that all lawfully eligible voters can exercise that right?

What are his motives here?

Gessler says he won’t attempt to invalidate the ballots of inactive overseas voters already mailed by Denver, so his lawsuit is not about uniformity in ensuring the right to vote. It’s also not about voter fraud since it has been proven that so very little of that exists. Who is willing to risk eighteen months in jail for the “reward” of improperly voting? Gessler’s action is also not about saving money because it costs many more taxpayer dollars to launch a legal challenge of Denver election procedures than it would to simply but a stamp on a ballot and mail it to a voter who might be “inactive” but is otherwise eligible to vote.

As a candidate Gessler claimed to have “repeatedly fought for fair and open elections.” That may be, but this lawsuit is anything but a fair fight. Denver believes that the opportunity to vote is worth the price of a stamp and our Secretary of State should honor that decision, not fight it. Our democracy is stronger when more citizens who participate in elections. Any attempt to keep Coloradans from voting is simply shameful.

The ACLU of Colorado has joined the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, a coalition in support of a 2012 ballot initiative to end marijuana prohibition in Colorado. The initiative would make marijuana legal for adults, take marijuana out of the black market, and establish a system in which it is regulated and taxed similar to alcohol.

Want to help out? Visit the campaign website -- www.RegulateMarijuana.org – to join the fight, read the full text of the initiative, and find out how to get involved. The campaign is in the process of collecting the 140,000+ signatures needed to ensure the measure qualifies for the ballot. We have more than 50,000 signatures now, and we are looking for more volunteers to help us get this initiative on the ballot. To get involved, go to www.regulatemarijuana.org/s/petition-drive-central

In Colorado we believe our laws should be practical and they should be fair. Yet we are wasting scarce public resources in our criminal justice system by having police, prosecutors and the courts treat marijuana users like violent criminals. It is unconscionable for our state to spend tax dollars to arrest, prosecute and crowd the courts, and jail people for possession of a small amount of marijuana, especially when those being arrested and jailed are disproportionately people of color.

The war on drugs has failed. Prohibition is not a sensible way to deal with marijuana. The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol will move us toward a more rational approach to drug laws.

• Colorado authorities made 17,000 arrests for drug offenses last year. Every dollar spent policing low-level adult marijuana wastes scarce public safety resources that could be used to prevent and solve serious violent crimes.

• One in five people in Colorado’s prisons are serving time for a drug offense. Every person we lock up for a non-violent drug offense uses a scare and expensive resource—a prison bed—that could otherwise be reserved for violent criminals who pose a real threat to the public.

• This initiative is a significant step toward dismantling the failed War on Drugs, and one of its defining injustices. Across the country, people of color, particularly youth of color, are far more likely than whites to be arrested for low-level marijuana possession, despite the fact that usage rates are at least as high among whites.

• Colorado has the authority and the autonomy to craft its own drug laws and to decide what conduct to criminalize, or not, under state law. When we look at the federal Controlled Substances Act, we see that Congress has purposely created a vigorous and independent role for states to enact and enforce their own drug laws.

• Colorado currently allows people to possess, cultivate and distribute marijuana for medical purposes. The federal government has never challenged this law as being an affront to federal authority.

Today the ACLU of Colorado filed an amicus brief in the Colorado Supreme Court case of Ward Churchill, who according to a jury verdict, was fired from his job as a Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder for exercising his First Amendment right to free expression.

Read the brief, as well as more information about the case

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