Voting issues first order of business on Coffman’s agenda
Ken Gordon conceded the race for secretary of state Tuesday, which granted victory to his Republican opponent Mike Coffman.
The final polls showed 49 percent Gordon versus 51 percent Coffman, a victory of 30,146 votes, according to 9news.com.
Mike Coffman, Colorado’s current treasurer, is preparing for his secretary-of-state term by planning ahead for the 2008 elections.
The Campus Press spoke to Coffman prior to the midterm elections. In September, Coffman said, if elected, his first order of business would be launching an immediate investigation into voting machines which he said “(have) left a question mark in the public eye.”
“I still plan on doing this,” Coffman said, and he plans to bring aboard his colleagues from the treasury to help him with this task.
Carolyn Wieczoreck a sophomore anthropology major, said she hopes the secretary of state office fixes the voting machines prior to the 2008 elections.
“If my vote is going to actually count against me because it’s not tallied, then there is no point in me waiting in a line for three hours to vote,” she said.
Coffman acknowledged that the voting centers this year weren’t adequately prepared for elections. This lack of preparedness led to the problems that many Coloradans faced in Denver and Douglas County.
“It will be different come 2008 elections,” Coffman said. “It better be.”
Coffman said he wants to restore voter confidence back into the voting system. He said the first step to achieving this is accounting for all voters and votes. Coffman also plans to make the process of voter registration stricter so that only eligible voters are voting.
Coffman didn’t to go into detail about what referendums he was happy to see pass; however, he gave some insight into the fact that he was glad to see that Amendment 38 didn’t pass. Amendment 38 would have expanded the ability of citizens to propose changes to state laws.
