Less than a month before the November election, the office of Colorado’s secretary of state declined to provide the names of noncitizens who received voter registration notifications by mail, according to records obtained by a watchdog group.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation released a report Thursday about how Colorado handled sending out 31,093 notifications on how to register to vote to foreign nationals living in the state.
The notices were supposed to go only to Colorado residents who were eligible to vote but not registered, telling them how to register.
“Communication records obtained in PILF’s investigation portray a Secretary of State’s Office more focused on damage control than answering questions posed by concerned county election officials,” the report says.
In one email exchange, an official in Moffat County, Colorado, explains that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Beall refused to provide more information about the 54 foreign nationals who received voter registration notices in his county.
“Deputy Secretary Beall stated in yesterday’s call that that there are potential legal issues that need to be addressed before a list of erroneous recipients in each county can be shared,” the Moffat County official wrote in an Oct. 11 email after a briefing by state officials.
Spokespersons for Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, did not respond to an inquiry from The Daily Signal for this report.
