RBC | Some Rio Blanco County residents may have received a confusing message about their voter registration status in the mail recently, and Clerk and Recorder Boots Campbell wants to make sure they know the material did not come from the county or the State of Colorado.
The mailed packets may say you’re not registered to vote, your mailing address is incorrect, or something in your voter registration needs to be updated. For voters who are registered, and know it, the letters can be a cause for concern.
The Voter Participation Center is a national non-profit organization whose mission, according to their website, “is to increase civic engagement among the Rising American Electorate: unmarried women, people of color and millennials.” Demographically, these groups now comprise the majority of voting-eligible Americans, but are statistically less likely to be registered to vote. VPC works to increase voter registration using a variety of methods, including the mailings, 130,000 of which were mailed to Colorado addresses in June.
According to Dwight Shellman of the Colorado Secretary of State’s Elections Division, no state agency maintains an official database of eligible—but not registered—voters. VPC uses purchased and/or commercially available mailing lists and compares them to the statewide voter list. VPC does not use the state voter list as the mailing list for its outreach efforts.
“Historically, these and similar mailings by VPC and affiliated organizations have generated many complaints, both in Colorado and elsewhere. We’ve received reports of mail pieces addressed to individuals who moved away from Colorado or died decades ago. We also hear of mailings addressed to people’s pets, and yes, even to deceased people’s deceased pets,” Shellman said in an email. “The bottom line is that VPC is engaging in conduct protected by the First Amendment, even if its underlying data is bad. No government agency can prohibit VPC from sending these out, and we have no insight into and cannot control the accuracy of the mailing lists it uses.”
What to do if you receive one of these packets:
Check your voter registration status online at https://www.sos.state.co.us/voter/pages/pub/home.xhtml. Have you moved recently? Changed political affiliation? Need your ballot mailed to a different address?
If you aren’t registered to vote, you can do so online at the previous address or at the county clerk and recorder’s office, or complete the VPC form.
If you are registered to vote and don’t want to receive further mailings from the VPC, follow the instructions to unsubscribe from VPC’s mailing lists at the bottom of the cover letter. Email the unique code found there to [email protected].
Special to the Herald Times
