Vote tally certification refusals could undermine 2024 election, experts warn

Two months ahead of the November election, Colorado officials are warning that refusal by local election canvass board members to certify results fuels misinformation and threatens voter trust in the entire election process.

Republicans on three local canvass boards voted against certifying the June primary results, according to the secretary of state’s office. It is a tiny percentage of the 64 three-member boards in each Colorado county, but it occurred in the context of a growing national movement by conservative activists to use the once mundane, administrative task of verifying vote tallies to protest shortcomings they see in how elections are run.

“There is harm in allowing these protest votes and by consistently voting against certifying. These officials are sowing distrust. They’re sowing doubt about the integrity of Colorado elections, and they are signaling that this sort of conduct is OK,” Nikhel Sus, the deputy chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, told Colorado Newsline.

“By getting on the ground level, at the county level, not only are you potentially disrupting the certification process, but you’re also creating a foundation (for election deniers) to later dispute the results in Congress on January 6, 2025,” he said of the nationwide trend.

The tactic is part of a larger national movement to erode trust in elections through various methods.




https://coloradonewsline.com/2024/09/15/vote-tally-certification-refusals/