If you’re a reporter, you’re naturally inclined to pay attention to your Secretary of State when he or she warns that possible legislation could lead to “dramatic” vote fraud.

But if it’s Colorado’s Scott Gessler, we’ve all learned by now, journalists can relax. Just relax. No need to race to get it up on Twitter. No need to rush anywhere, because it’s not news. He’s lost his credibility way more than Chicken Little.

So, I hope you didn’t get excited if you happened to be listening to Greeley radio station KFKA Monday morning and heard Gessler say this to host Tom Lucero:

“I’ve heard a lot of radical stuff coming out of the Legislature. We’ll see what actually happens.

“But one of the things that I’ve heard that they want to push is same day voter registration, where someone shows up on Election Day and registers immediately. And that creates all kinds of havoc in our systems, and it’s not secure at all. We’ve seen, you know, real, real, dramatic vote fraud in other states, especially urban areas that have used that same voter registration. So, I’m afraid that they’re going to push it nonetheless, and despite all our success in voter turnout, and despite our increased participation, I’m afraid that they’re going to claim that things are terrible nonetheless, and use that as an excuse to push for something that really opens us up to vote fraud.”

[Gessler said some other stuff about his work with the courts on other election matters, and you can listen here: Scott Gessler raises specter of voter fraud if election-day registration passes.]

But, please, we all know by now that if fraud were a real issue, the clerks would be worried. All of them may not be right all the time either, but they’re worth listening to.

And in any case, just for the sake of saying it, you don’t need to dig deep to find out that we can have safe election-day voter registration in Colorado. It doesn’t favor one party over another, which wouldn’t be a reason to oppose it, even if it did.

Bottom line for reporters: You can forget about this blog post and get back to real work.

Correction Jan. 31, 2013. Michael Brown’s quote below was imprecise. The actual quote should read: On Denver radio station KHOW Jan. 16, Michael “Brownie” Brown, George W. Bush’s FEMA Director, told his talk-show listeners, “You hear these sob stories…. I don’t care whether they were two years old or they were 16 years old when their parents brought them across the border. They’re here illegally…. I really don’t have any sympathy.”

—————-

As civil-unions legislation hits the home stretch at the State Capitol, along with a bill granting in-state tuition to undocumented college students, let’s take a moment to encourage reporters to recall a jump-up-and-down-arms-waving op-ed that appeared in The Denver Post, just days after the election:

Rupublican thinkers Josh Penry and Rob Witwer wrote about the problem with the Colorado GOP:

Now, two short months later, most Republicans at the State Capitol are lining up against the ASSET bill, offering reduced tuition to undocumented college students.

The Post’s Lynn Bartels is calmly pointing out that even fewer Republican lawmakers appear to support a civil-unions bill this year than last year, because the GOP moderates were booted out by voters.

Rep. Cory Gardner is proudly telling the media how much he’d love to fill the GOP tent with women and Hispanics, without saying he’s against all abortion, some forms of birth control, as well as comprehensive immigration reform. Ditto for the rest of the CO GOP delegation, at least with respect to a path to citizenship.

Republicans are NOT jumping-up-and-down-arms-waving to denounce bills, introduced by fellow Republicans at the State Capitol, attacking abortion rights, including a bill banning all abortion, even in the cases of rape and incest.

On the radio, you have Michael “Brownie” Brown, W’s FEMA director with deep Republican connections, effectively thumbing his nose at Penry and Witwer by saying: “You hear these sob stories… I don’t care if they were two-years-old when they came. They’re illegal.. I have no sympathy.”

Secretary of State Scott Gessler may not see the irony that, just as ASSET is debated in Colorado, he’s scheduled to join a panel tomorrow at the Heritage Center with Kansas SOS Kris Kobach, who played a big part in creating the much-maligned anti-hispanic, anti-immigration law in Arizona. They’ll be talking about how to get tough on voting, but tough talk about immigration may pop up given the venue and the audience.

I could go on here, but why make a blog post long when a short one makes your point–and you have other stuff to do, like go on a walk with your 83-year-old mother in Commons Park, where you can relax and watch the GOP self-destruct?

In what appears to be his first public comments on news reports that he used his office’s discretionary funds to give himself what amounted to a $1,400 bonus, Secretary of State Gessler told KNUS this morning that the issues involved are “petty stuff” and The Denver Post is on a “jihad” against him.

KNUS Host Steve Kelley talks a lot about how tough it was for him when he was unemployed, before landing his KNUS gig. And I believe him.

But you wonder how can he sit there and let Scott Gessler call $1,400 “penny ante, petty stuff,” and The Post is engaging in “fly specking” (which, in case you didn’t know, means “to examine in minute detail” according to the American Heritage dictionary).

Kelley should have asked Gessler why, if he thinks $1,400 is so insignificant, like fly excrement, why he bothered to ask his staff to cut him a check for it, apparently without providing any justification for receiving the cash.

Kelley also let Gessler go on about how his predecessors used discretionary funds, without pointing out that they did so within the proper protocols of their offices, while apparently Gessler did not.

And then there’s the part about Gessler saying The Post is on a jihad against him.

Kelley should have pointed out that, to be fair, it looks more like the other way around, with Gessler repeatedly flogging The Post’s editorial board, equating “the left” with the “mainstream media,” saying the mainstream media doesn’t like Republicans sho shake things up, and more.

I hope Kelley addresses these matters next time Gessler is on the line.

Listen here to Gessler on KNUS Kelley and Company 10-19-2012, or read the partial transcript below:

Kelley: I know you’re on the front page of The Post this morning, with this $1,400 story. It’s a joke, in my mind. It looks like a ridiculous thing. You want to respond to that in any way shape or form. I looked at that and I said, ‘Come on.’

Gessler: Sure. Here’s what’s going on. I mean, The Post is doing a level of fly specking and holding sort of my spending to a standard that they’ve never done to anyone else and they’re certainly not doing to anyone else. You know, our governor uses his discretionary funds, and these are discretionary funds that don’t quite fall within the category of state business. He uses his discretionary funds to fly to Davos, Switzerland, and I don’t begrudge him that. I think it’s fine. My predecessor used his discretionary funds for all kinds of things. He went to Taiwan and used some discretionary funds to travel around Taiwan. And you don’t question–

Kelley: We’re talking about $1,400. Come on!

Gessler: So The Post is, I mean, they’re on this sort of jihad I think, and it’s truly a double standard. It’s one thing I’ve learned to accept because, ah, you know, let’s face it, The Post doesn’t always like me all the time. But I think most people will realize that at the end of the day this is really penny ante, petty stuff that The Post is talking about. The real stuff is, have we gotten a lot of people to register to vote. Are we running a clean election. How are our business registrations? Our fees are among the lowest in the country. Things are working at the office better than they ever have before. I think that’s the substance of what we need to focus on.

Kelley: Scott, thank you very much. I appreciate that. And we’ll see you down the road.

Gessler: Great. Thank you very much.

Kelley: Continue the good work.

Compared to the 2010 election in Colorado, this one has been mostly a snoozer, journalistically.

But the 2010 election wasn’t really an election. It was a dramatic comedy show, with so many stories to tell and scandals to uncover that journalists almost couldn’t help but be stars.

Still, reporters have turned out some excellent work this time around, and I’ve listed my favorite reporting below. I’m hoping to see more great work in the next few weeks, but this list is inspiring.

9News Kyle Clark: “Coffman won’t explain Obama ‘not an American’ comments” Rather than let Coffman hide, Clark went out and found him.

Fox 31′s Eli Stokols: “FOX31 Denver goes one-on-one with Paul Ryan” Stokols shows how an informed journalist can challenge a candidate’s spin.

The Denver Post’s Lynn Bartels and Tim Hoover: “Anarchy, chaos behind Colorado civil unions bill may have long-lasting effects” They dug deep to show, among other things, how the upcoming election influenced the legislative debate on civil unions.

The Denver Post’s Tim Hoover: “Noncitizen ID’d fraction of those first alleged by Gessler” No matter where you sit on the political spectrum, to understand Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s behavior and priorities, you have to understand the blizzard of numbers Gessler tosses around. Hoover did a great job clarifying Gessler’s figures in this piece.

Associated Press’ Ivan Moreno: “Voter Purges Turn Up Little Evidence Of Fraud Despite Republican Insistence” Like Hoover, Moreno gets to the heart of the voter “fraud” issue by looking at the details.

Fox 31′s Eli Stokols: “Colo. girl registering ‘only Romney’ voters tied to firm dumped by RNC over fraud” Stokols quickly connected the dots from Colorado to a scandal that was developing nationally.

CBS4′s Shaun Boyd: “Romney Loses Cool When Questioned About Marijuana, Gay Marriage” Boyd keeps her cool and sticks to her questions even as Romney flips out.

KBNO radio host Fernando Sergio’s interview with President Obama, which makes the list because Sergio almost certainly got the first interview with a sitting president on Spanish language radio in Colorado.

Colorado Statesman’s Judy Hope Strogoff: “Perry campaigns with friends in Colorado” I love this scoop, with the photos. An illuminating and fun piece.

The Denver Post’s John Ingold: “GOP’s VP candidate, Paul Ryan, emphasizes contrast with Obama’s vision” I like how Ingold gets at the candidates’ underlying view of government, as he reports on a campaign stop.

Local TV news fact checkers Shaun Boyd (CBS4), Matt Flener (9News), Brandon Rittiman (9News), and (sometimes) Marshall Zellinger (7News). I don’t always agree with them, but what they do is really important, especially on local TV.

You may have heard that Secretary of State Scott Gessler said last week, in a speech to fellow conservatives, that the “left” doesn’t care about voter fraud. But he also said, during the question and answer portion of his presentation, that he likes to “tease” that The Denver Post is the embodiment of the “liberal mainstream media.”

Gessler: I always teasingly say that if I wanted to call central casting for a movie to get the mainstream media, the liberal mainstream media, they would send me The Denver Post editorial board.

That’s Gessler’s idea of teasing? I’ve heard him say this before, and it didn’t sound like he was teasing then, but even if he is teasing, you wonder if arch conservative columnist Vincenet Carroll, who sits on the editorial board with radical lefty Post founder Dean Singleton, is amused.

I doubt it.

And they’re definitely not amused about Gessler’s serious comments.

Articulating what most reasonable people were thinking about Gessler’s attack on the integrity of everyone on the left, The Post called his comments “troublesome this close to an election.”

Denver Post: Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s partisanship is ill-advised in general, but it’s particularly troublesome this close to an election.

On the substance of election fraud, The Post stated that what Gessler “has previously called the ‘widespread fraud’ of non-citizens voting was not even a rounding error.”

From the perspective of someone on the left, whom Gessler thinks “is more than willing to lie” to win elections, and who, in actuality, would do just about anything to stop voter fraud no matter who’s doing it, I would have liked The Post to have hit Gessler even harder, with an editorial saying that he owes people like me and the state an apology and, sorry to say, that he should step down before the election.

But why would Gessler’s embodiment of the liberal mainstream media agree with a liberal like me?

The Denver Post ran a good piece yesterday morning, and the Colorado Indpendent followed with a more expansive piece yesterday afteroon, on Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s appearance at the Conservative Political Action Committee’s conference, held in Denver Thursday.

Gessler was on a panel titled, “Stealing Elections: What the Left Doesn’t Want You to Know About Voter Fraud,” and the media outlets reported, among other things, Gessler’s accusation that the “left” doesn’t care about election fraud.

Gessler’s comments, especially when you read his entire speech, should be seen as yet another warning sign to reporters about his brazen partisanship, which should obviously be a huge concern for all journalists with the election coming.

Gessler came to the podium after a speech by Catherine Engelbrecht of True the Vote. (The Colorado Independent provided its own transcript of the speech as well.)

Gessler: Thank you, very much. Let me start off by of course welcoming CPAC back to the great state of Colorado. Some of us would say, “The Greatest of States” Colorado. Um, you know, so I was elected back in November of 2010, took office in January of 2011. And I think most people would agree that when it comes to elections, it should be easy to vote but tough to cheat. And, you know, I’m focused on both efforts. But the “tough to cheat” tends to draw a little bit of controversy. And I think you’re going to hear from some folks who have really great examples of the vulnerabilities and problems we have throughout our country.

But what I was really struck by after taking office is the level of anger and the level of intensity with which the Left opposes efforts to make sure we’ve got clean and accurate voter rolls and honest elections. And I’ve thought a lot about that –to think about what drives them. And, so, I guess the topic here is, you know, “What the Left Doesn’t Want You to Know”. That’s hard to answer because they’re just so obvious in their behavior. Uh, but I think that one of the things that’s going on, is the people who oppose election integrity efforts, they frankly don’t care about vote fraud. They really don’t care about it. They may say they do, but they don’t.

And when you argue with them, or when the public debate – and this is sort of how the public debate goes. The Left will argue there is no vote fraud, there really isn’t any vote fraud.

They’ll say there’s corruption in our ballot initiatives. They’ll say there’s corruption in campaign finance. But when it comes to voting in the booths, our hearts are pure and without malice, and ne’er shall a dark thought cross our minds.

That’s their attitude. And so you show them that there’s fraud and mistake and abuse there, and then they change their argument. They say, “Well, there’s just a little bit. You haven’t shown me very much. It’s just a little bit.” And so you may show them a few more, and there’s more, and then they say, “Well, it’s not organized.” As if organization is the hallmark. And so, sometimes we’ll actually be able to show organization and then they’ll say, “Well, it hasn’t affected an election. You can’t prove to me that it has affected an election.” There’s examples where it has affected an election. And then they’ll argue, “Well, it’s not widespread.” And of course, for them, widespread is never widespread enough when it comes to vote fraud. It’s always minimal. And then, after you pin them down on that argument, they’ll say, “Well, let’s focus on getting people to vote. Because that’s really what America’s about.” And the reason why I’ve become so confident that they don’t care about this is, when you look at Colorado, we’ve made efforts to clean our voting rolls. We’ve also made massive efforts to register people to vote. Actually, those efforts have outweighed, from a resource standpoint, um, the non-citizen and voter ID issues. But the Left doesn’t care about that. They’re only focused on denying that vote fraud exists. It’s unfortunate. I think the other thing that’s going on is people on the left, to be frank among us and others, are manipulative. They just manipulate this issue. And I think – I mean, I think some people are very sincere when they deny vote fraud or – they’re misguided, but sincere. But I see two ways in which they really manipulate it. One is, when it comes to illegally registering people to vote. Voter registration drives don’t suffer the consequences. They’ll go before people – for example, non-citizens, they don’t care if they are non-citizens. They’ll register them to vote. And if that non-citizen registers and then votes, they suffer serious consequences: criminal prosecution, loss of the ability to ever become a US citizen. But the voter registration drive doesn’t suffer any of those consequences. So I think they’re very happy to manipulate people into believing that it’s okay to ignore these laws. I think the other thing that they are willing to do, is manipulate people to demagogue an issue, to sort of try and rile up anger, or use anger as a tool. And that’s happened throughout our history. But to sort of manipulate people to get them angry against a make-believe enemy that doesn’t exist, in an effort to win votes, to demonize, frankly, people who are conservative and believe in limited government. This is the tool they use, and of course the ultimate card they play is the racism card. And they’re more than willing to lie to do this. We’ve done some investigation in some of our voter registration drives, and one person was lying, telling people they were no longer registered to vote. And when that person was confronted, they got very angry. They said, “It doesn’t matter what I say, as long as I’m trying to register people to vote and get people mobilized.” In other words, “It’s okay to demagogue an issue,” this person thought, as long as their end is pure—their – the means justify the ends, [inaudible --in that sense (?)]. And so we’ve seen that repeatedly. It’s an unfortunate dynamic.

I think the ‘take-away’ from all of this is, the people who oppose election integrity on the left, they’re never going to change their minds. They really sort of dug their heels in. But the broad mass of people in America are common sense, and they agree with us. And so, I think we have to remain steadfast in our efforts, through solid evidence, persuasion, and patience, and ultimately, ultimately we will prevail in this battle. And thank you for being here. And thank you for all you do.

Here’s how Jon Caldara introduced Secretary of State Scott Gessler last week when Gessler appeared on Caldara’s Channel 12 TV show:

You know him, you love him, and he rubs so many people the wrong way because you do your job – Scott Gessler.

About what you’d expect, right?

Except in this case it was particularly ironic because during the interview, Gessler blamed County Clerks for not doing their job properly, for being a root cause of mostly bogus voter registration problems that Gessler alleges.

Asked by Caldara why noncitizens appear on the voting rolls, Gessler basically threw the County Clerks under the bus, and Caldara didn’t bother to ask if Gessler felt any responsibility himself.

“At the Secretary of State’s office you should catch that and not register them,” Caldara said.

Gessler responded by saying, first, that people register improperly because they don’t understand the law.

Then he said that this is the Clerks’ fault, as if Gessler operated on a distant planet form them.

Gessler: It’s the clerks that actually go through those forms and register people to vote–the county clerks, and it secondly shows that there is some slop as far as people not carefully looking at those registration forms and making sure that if someone says, “no” they’re not registered to vote, you know, that person shouldn’t be registered.

Is Gessler saying he could do the clerks job better than the clerks? Caldara didn’t ask.

But it makes you wonder, especially because Gessler said later that we have a “problem” with Colorado election law, whether he’s going to make a play for greater control of state voter registration.

A good question next time Gessler puts his face in front of reporters, which he’s done a few times during his reign.

In a blog post yesterday, I offered some fresh examples of how, when Scott Gessler is on right-wing radio, he often sounds just like the right-wing radio host, bashing Democrats.

That’s not good, if you’re the Secretary of State, because you’re supposed to be above the partisan fray, at least somewhat, so that people trust our election system.

In my example yesterday, from Gessler’s recent appearance on KOA’s Mike Rosen Show, Gessler said it’s “the left’s common tactic just to scream voter intimidation whenever anything comes up they don’t like.”

Gessler: “I mean if you look back, back in 2004, you know, the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign actually published a Colorado election-day manual, and in that, they specifically said, if no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a preemptive strike. And they go through a whole list of things where the Democrats are supposed to launch a preemptive strike, accusing Republicans of intimidation, rounding up minority people. And that’s their word. It says, quote minority leadership denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting. So it’s really sort of a cynical way for the Democrats to try and rile up, and I should say the left as well, to rile up their base by making these accusations whether or not there are any facts to support it.”

I should have taken the time to see if Gessler had his facts right about the Kerry-Edwards campaign manual, but I’m grateful that Tom,  a commentator on ColoradoPols, looked it up for me.

Here’s an excerpt from it, as provided by the Democratic National Comittee, and it shows that, far from proving Gessler’s point that the left screams “voter intimidation whenever anything comes up they don’t like,” Democrats were simply preparing intelligently for possible voter intimidation:

II. HOW TO ORGANIZE TO PREVENT AND COMBAT VOTER INTIMIDATION The best way to combat minority voter intimidation tactics is to prevent them from occurring in the first place and prepare in advance to deal with them should they take place on election day.

1. If there are any signs of present or expected intimidation activity, in advance of election day, launch a press program that might include the following elements:

[The document continues with a list of suggestions, which you can read if you're interested.]

On ColoradoPols, Tom offered this comment:

The manual in question was excerpted by Drudge in 2004. The DNC released a more complete excerpt indicating that the “pre-emptive strike” was to get information out to let potentially disenfranchised voters know what to look out for, especially in states with a history of voter intimidation and disenfranchisement.

It’s not surprising that Colorado had such a thing in the field since Donetta Davidson was letting fly with a stream of sketchy shit, including a big voter purge, inconsistent application of voting rules across counties and the wonky implementation of new voting machines. Even the Guardian newspaper covered our little doings. http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl…

Actually, a pre-emptive strike to counter voter disenfranchisement sounds like something that would be useful this year in a number of states.

I couldn’t find a current copy of the DNC document, but here’s a 2004 wayback machine link http://web.archive.org/web/200…

Bottom line: it’s bad enough for a Secretary of State to throw out partisan salvos, as if he were Mike Rosen. But when his partisan attacks are also completely misleading or outright wrong, it’s even worse. And Rosen should let his listeners know about it.

As Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s term drags on, you’d think even the stomachs of conservatives like KOA’s Mike Rosen would turn when Gessler re-launches the partisan attacks he’s been on about since day one in office.

Maybe you wouldn’t expect Rosen to be sick of it, but everyone else, yes?

It’s almost laughable to suggest again that Gessler should take his office seriously and start sounding like our state’s top election official, instead of like a Republican attack dog, because no one expects Gessler to change his ways at this point.

But still, his partisan rhetoric is, to use an over-used word in political commentary, unacceptable, and even the likes of Rosen should call him on it.

For example, on Rosen’s show last week, Rosen read Gessler a Denver Post quote from Joanne Kron Schwartz, the Director of the progressive group ProgressNow, saying that Gessler’s attempt to find noncitizens on the voter rolls could intimidate some eligible voters, particularly Latinos, and result in their not voting.

A Secretary of State in his right mind, who wants people to have faith in elections, would answer Schwartz’s reasonable objection with a fact-based response, sticking to his lines about how the voting rolls must be scrutinized.

But Gessler’s immediate response sounds like something Rush Limbaugh might blast out.

“Unfortunately this is part of the left’s common tactic,” Gessler told Rosen, “just to scream voter intimidation whenever anything comes up they don’t like.”

Let me just say, I’m part of the left and I don’t scream voter intimidation “whenever anything comes up” that I don’t like. I never scream it at my 15-year-old son, for example, when he leaves a pig-pen-like trail of debris around the house.

Maybe Gessler means to say that the left is too concerned about voter intimidation.

But why would you expect a person with Gessler’s job title to stick to a measured response?

Gessler’s un-statesmanship continued, with Rosen’s approval:

Gessler: “I mean if you look back, back in 2004, you know, the Kerry-Edwards presidential campaign actually published a Colorado election-day manual, and in that, they specifically said, if no signs of intimidation techniques have emerged yet, launch a preemptive strike. And they go through a whole list of things where the Democrats are supposed to launch a preemptive strike, accusing Republicans of intimidation, rounding up minority people. And that’s their word. It says, quote minority leadership denouncing tactics that discourage people from voting. So it’s really sort of a cynical way for the Democrats to try and rile up, and I should say the left as well, to rile up their base by making these accusations whether or not there are any facts to support it.”

Even if you accept Gessler’s facts about the Kerry-Edwards campaign, and why should you, do you really want your secretary of state to dismiss a historically legitimate concern about voter intimidation by accusing Democrats of cynically riling up their base?

It’s this sort of brazen partisanship that, at the end of the day, is Gessler’s core downfall as Secretary of State, epitomized in Gessler’s quote to the Greeley Tribune about his job: “You’re here to do something, to further the conservative viewpoint.”

We can disagree with his loose-with-the-facts style, and priorities, but his sullying of the office is what kills me most—and should even kill a civic-minded guy like Rosen.

“You have to sort of wonder at the motivations,” Gessler said later in the interview, speculating about the evil leftists that seem to haunt him. “I think a lot of times, what they are trying to do is play the race card, play the disenfranchisement card, and use it as a political talking point to rile up their base.”

Thanks, Rush Gessler.

On his KOA radio show yesterday (June 11), Mike Rosen asked Secretary of State Scott Gessler about a paragraph toward the end of a  July 10 Denver Post article about Gessler’s efforts to get the Department of Homeland Security review lists of voters.

Rosen read the following sentence from The Denver Post:

“The state has also identified 430 people who contacted Gessler’s or their local county elections office, and asked to be removed from the voter registration list because they are not citizens.”

Then Rosen and Gessler had this exchange:

Gessler: “Well, let me tell you exactly what’s going on. There’s a little bit of a misquote there. We’ve got 430 people statewide over the last several years who either, when they filled out a voter-registration form said, I am not a citizen, and some of them, many of them, were erroneously registered to vote.”

Rosen: They checked the wrong box when they filled out the form?

Gessler: Well, there’s a question as to whether they checked the wrong box or the right box. I think a lot of people are being truthful. They are saying they are not a citizen but they think they have the right to vote, which they don’t. Or they actually wrote us, and there are a lot of people who wrote us. And I say ‘us,’ the state, one of the clerks and recorders or someone like that, and said, please remove me from the voting rolls. I am not a citizen… They were not on the voting rolls. We’ve taken those people off.

Gessler is saying there’s an incorrect statement in The Post, and it appears to come from Gessler spokesman Rich Coolidge, that 430 people contacted the state and asked to be removed from the voter rolls.

What’s the correct figure? He doesn’t appear to know, and that’s what media types need to keep in mind when Gessler makes any numerical utterance.