Since day one in office, Gessler has had a number of problems as well a problem with numbers, as in figures.

First, you recall, it was his salary figure. Too low.

Then he said there was the “pretty high incidence” of fraud (implying a BIG number) in Denver’s 2009 elections, based on the fact that 200 inactive-voter ballots were returned. The real number was zero. No cases of fraud were found.

Later, he told the Pueblo Chieftain, regarding returned election ballots, that “some are fraud.” This sounded like a MID-SIZED number, but “some” turned out to be none, based on any real-life evidence released to date. Ditto for evidence of Gessler’s assertion that “instances” of voter fraud in Colorado could have been prevented by requiring voters to present identification.

Then there was the 11,805 people who, Gessler said, were not citizens when they registered to vote.

Of these people, Gessler said he has a  list of 4,947 actual voters who could have voted illegally in Colorado.  But Gessler refused to give this list to The Denver Post or anyone else. Most recently, last weekend, he said there are “a lot” of noncitizens on the voting rolls.

Also stuck in make-believe land are the 106 people, of the 4,947 figure above, Gessler said were likely to actually have voted illegally. The correct number, as far as anyone can tell, is zero, unless someone is hiding evidence. Which is unlikely because Gessler himself has access to databases he needs to verify this figure.

Journalists should be able to relate to Gessler insofar as reporters are known to have trouble with numbers, too. But unlike Gessler, journalists self-identify as innumerate and double- and triple-check their numbers before putting them out there.

This doesn’t stop journalists from making numerical mistakes, but they usually try to set the record straight.

But Gessler plows ahead, as if his wrong or ostensibly fictional numbers are meaningful.

And he seems to drop his numbers in media venues where reporters might not know the history that I’ve outlined above, like the Sterling Journal-Advocate, which recently reported:

[Gessler’s] office is also working on making sure only eligible people are voting.

“One of the areas that we’ve got a real hole in, in Colorado, is the issue with respect to non-citizens voting,” Gessler said.

When his office compared the driver’s license data base against the voter registration data base last year, they found thousands of people who are here legally, who proved they were non-citizens, had a green card or student visa and got a driver’s license with that and registered to vote. [Big Media emphasis]

This figure of “thousands” of potentially illegal voters, like most of Gessler’s numbers, has nothing supporting it. It’s never been verified or substantiated at all.

At this point, after living through Gessler’s parade of numbers, you wouldn’t think reporters who’ve been following our Secretary of State would regurgitate any number from him without letting thier audience know if it’s wrong, unverified, or, we can only hope, accurate.

But reporters at small-town newspapers should be on their guard. Please, if Gessler passes through town, in the interest of maintaining basic faith in our voting system, check his numbers.

There’s a good chance someone is going to say something newsworthy when he or she prefaces it with, “some folks in my office cringed when I said this, but I’m going to say it again.”

That’s what Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler said to a GOP group, as reported by Colorado Statesman’s Judy Hope Strogoff, prior to repeating his view that the mainstream media hates uppity Republicans. I wrote about it the first time he said it, calling on wimpy reporters to fight back and ask him for more evidence, but no enterprising reporter took the challenge.

Now journos have another chance. Gessler said:

Gessler: “Republicans who behave well, who the mainstream media can sort of pat on the head and say, “Good boy, that’s a good job,” Republicans who sort of toe the line and don’t really want to make real change but you know, sort of will kick around the edges a little bit but buy into the mainstream media, the big money type framework — they’re good, they’re okay, they’re the Republicans that they like. But God forbid someone would really want to shake things up, that’s terrible. So they don’t like that.”

I wouldn’t say I had to catch my breath after I read that, like Andrea Mitchell was after Foster Friess told her that “gals” should just keep their knees together.

But I was gasping as I read numerous other Gessler statements in the Statesman’s Gessler article, which is well worth taking a break from Twitter to read.

I’ll stick to Gessler’s media criticisms here, because they’re so sophisticated, but, please, you’ll love everything he has to say.

Gessler: “What I have found is, there is a status quo, there is a way of going about things in this state and oftentimes in this country, and there’s a reason it’s there. And if you look, probably the perfect embodiment of that is The Denver Post editorial board. I mean if you called up Central Casting and said, “I’d like a liberal mainstream media establishment, can you send one to me?” they would send you the Denver Post editorial board. And I think within my first three weeks they’d written six editorials against me, either about me or against me. None of them were favorable.”

See what I mean about how sophisticated Gessler is when it comes to media criticism?

I’d always thought Vince Carroll, who sits on The Post editorial board, was part of the conservative media establishment, but Gessler blows this up by lumping him into the “liberal mainstream media establishment.” Good media criticism should challenge your thinking, and Gessler hits a home run here.

I can think of only one Colorado media critic who showed more depth, and that was Doug Bruce when he kicked an annoying Rocky Mountain News photographer.

In case you missed Gessler’s bold point about the liberal media’s unfair treatment of him, he returned to it again in the Statesman article, lumping together news reporters, editorial writers, and Democrats (and therefore socialists) in one nasty army out to get him.

Gessler: “And remember our Central Casting mainstream media, The Denver Post? They editorialized against this law and they said, “It’s a power grab by Gessler and he already has the authority to do it.” Now if you think about that, those are two mutually exclusive… I mean if it’s a power grab then I don’t have the authority, and I’m grabbing power. And those sentences were right next to one another.

So we lost last year’s legislative battle.”

If you take a look at The Post editorial that he’s talking about, titled “Voter Integrity or Power Grab?” you’ll find that The Post thought Gessler was grabbing power because his bill would have given him the authority to run amok. In other words, a true power grab. The editorial didn’t mention anything about Gessler already having the authority he needed to do his job. That came out later, in a news article.

The Post made this radical observation in its editorial:

If people who are ineligible to cast ballots in Colorado are on voter registration rolls, they need to be removed.

On that point, we agree with Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

However, we’re concerned that the power he is seeking from the state legislature to conduct such investigations is overly broad and undefined.

That opinion is so conservative, it must come from the “embodiment” of the “liberal mainstream media establishment.”

For months, I’ve been begging reporters to ask Secretary of State Scott Gessler for evidence when he claims there’s actual, real-life, happening-now election fraud in Colorado.

But reporters should not only ask Gessler for evidence, but also show it to him, when he makes claims that contradict facts that are admittedly obscure but should be known inside and out by the Secretary of State.

One such fact is that a larger percentage of racial and ethnic minorities than whites, at least in Denver, would not receive election ballots in the mail if ballots were not sent to “inactive voters,” defined as voters who’ve missed at least one general election and not responded to postcards.

Yet, on CBS 4 earlier this week, in a story about Rep. Diana DeGette’s warning of voter suppression in Colorado, Gessler said:

“When it comes to mail ballots, I don’t know who and I don’t know if there is any evidence of what racial minority uses them versus Causcasians. There’s just no evidence along those lines.”

Back in October, Rachel Maddow poduced maps showing, with graghic devastation, how minorities, particularly Hispanics, would be affected compared to whites if mail ballots were not sent to inactive voters.

As you can see here at the two-and-a-half minute mark, one map shows where ethnic and racial minorities live in Denver. The next map shows where inactive voters live.

It’s clear that a greater concentration of inactive voters are Hispanic and would not receive mail-in ballots under Gessler’s proposal not to send such ballots to inactive voters. ColoradoPols has a good analysis of this here.

Maybe Gessler didn’t see these maps? Or maybe when he was talking about mail-in ballots generally, not spcifically from inactive voters–even though the context of the quote makes it appear as if he’s talking about mail ballots from inactive voters?

In any case, when it comes to Gessler, reporters have to be ready to produce evidence, and ask for it, to keep the facts straight and accurate.

If you’ve been reading The Denver Post over the past year, you know Secretary of State Scott Gessler likes to talk about possible fraud in Denver elections, as he did when he filed a lawsuit trying to stop counties from mailing ballots to inactive voters, and as he did when he was waving lists of possible illegal voters.

(My mistake, he didn’t wave these lists; he just talked about them and refused to make them public.)

But, if you’ve been reading The Post, you may not know that Gessler has alleged real-life, actual, happening-now fraud. That’s of course a far more serious allegation, but not a word of it has graced the pages of The Post.

That is, until Saturday, in an opinion column by Fred Brown, who scooped the entire news department.

Brown’s column was the first piece of any kind, news or opinion in The Post, stating Scott Gessler’s view that there is actual election fraud in Colorado.

Brown wrote:

“He [Gessler] rode into office in 2010 on a wave of Tea Party insurgence and immediately began warning everyone, from Coloradans to congressional committees, about election fraud, which he says is widespread but most others, including Meyer, say is a minor problem.”

In an email exchange with me, Brown wrote that he didn’t talk to Gessler directly about this. 

Brown wrote that he relied on other sources, including Gessler’s congressional testimony, which was quoted in The Post but does not quite allege fraud. Gessler testified,  “We know we have a problem with possible noncitizens on the voter rolls.”

But Gessler said on the radio: “So we know fraud exists. The question is, what’s the extent and what’s the proper balance.”

And to the Pueblo Chieftain: “Signatures vary a lot, and sometimes people’s signatures don’t match what’s on file. Some are fraud, some are innocent mistakes.”

Because Brown didn’t talk with Gessler directly, a door is wide open for a Post reporter to get out in front of the commentary section, track down Scott Gessler, and ask him, “Where’s his evidence for fraud in Colorado elections?”

And if he has none, why does a laywer like him, much less a man who’s got the title of Secretary of State, play fast and loose with the F word?

Secretary of State Scott Gessler said a lot of interesting things during his speech at Colorado Christian University last week, but reporters should circle back and ask about a story Gessler told about the last legislative session.

We know that Gessler made a lot of references to voter fraud during the last session, implying that there could be thousands of illegal voters.

At one point, he said he that he did “believe” there were instances of fraud in Colorado that a photo-identification pill would have prevented.

But during his speech Monday, Gessler said he had made a promis to show proof of fraud.

Gessler said he was making a presentation to the Senate State Affairs Committee, and one Senator told him he’d agree with Gessler on a photo-identification bill if there were evidence vote fraud in Colorado. Gessler said he responded to the senator by promising to produce evidence of such fraud.

“Well, you know, we’re going to provide some evidence of that,” Gessler recalled that he told the senator.

The senator responded by saying the evidence would have to be “widespread,” Gessler recounted.

Gessler doesn’t have “high hopes” that a photo-identification bill will get through the State Senate next session, but he plans to try anyway, he said.

He will “assemble the evidence from states like Indiana, assemble the evidence from states like Georgia; there’s been eleven other states where this has passed in the last two years and look at their experiences and be able to make the case that this is a good thing for the state Colorado, just as it’s been a good thing for many other states.”

So this gives journalists a clue about where Gessler may be going with his accusations of voter fraud. With no proof of election fraud here in Colorado, he may trot out evidence, sparse as it may be, from other states, and claim it applies here.

If he does this, journalists should report that Gessler promised to provide evidence of Colorado fraud.

And if he manages to come up with proof of fraud in Colorado, it should be taken seriously, but it would be legitimate for reporters to evaluate the seriousness of evidence based, in part, on how widespread it is. For example, The Denver Post reported earlier this year that national studies show that election fraud by noncitizens is “not an issue.”

Gessler told the audience at Colorado Christian University that opponents to bills requiring voters to present photo-identification take a “see-no-evil, hear-no-evil speak-no-evil approach.”

But reporters should point out that, in fact, when it comes to elections in Colorado, there’s essentially no evil to see or hear, despite much searching. The problem comes when you have a secretary of state who takes a promise-evil, see-evil, and hear-evil approach, and delivers nothing.

Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler said last month that he thinks  “a lot of the mainstream media” get upset when Republicans “make waves,” but these hostile feelings toward the media didn’t stop him Monday from suggesting people can influence newspaper editors by writing letters to the editor and online comments.

“When they write a story, and they see a large number of comments one way or the other, that means something,” said Gessler. “We do a terrible job on our ideological side of the fence. We do a terrible job of this.”

Gessler’s comments came in response to a question from the audience at his lecture Monday evening at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute.

The unidentified questioner asked speakers Gessler and Colorado State Treasurer Walker Stapleton what ordinary citizens can do.

In addition to influencing journalists, by writing letters-to-the-editor and blogging, Gessler suggested people volunteer as election judges, sign up to receive e-mails from his office, and attend rulemaking hearings or submit comments on proposed rules.

“So, sign up for our e-newsletters, sign up for our notifications, write an email, write an email to us so you know what’s going on,” Gessler said. “Come to our rulemaking hearings. Once every two months, write a letter-to-the-editor. Twenty minutes a week, do a blog. I won’t ask anyone to contribute money to a campaign. And serve as an election judge. Those are the things you can do.”

Gessler said testifying during the rulemaking process is important but did not have an impact in the recent challenge of his rule to increase the amount of money a group of people can raise for an political issue before their group is subject to campaign finance laws.

“Now, this particular court [in the issue-committee-threshold case] didn’t read any of that [citizen testimony], so he [the judge] wasn’t quite prepared, which he admitted, which is unfortunate, but I’m sure the Court of Appeals will be far more prepared than he was, and those comments are just critical for helping me out,” said Gessler.

Here’s an excerpt of Gessler’s comments on this topic:

Look, if you can spend time, two or three hours, once every two months, to write a letter-to-the editor, that makes a difference. Writing a letter-to-the-editor once every two months really makes a difference.  It only takes three or four hours, about as much time as you’ll spend driving here, listening, and driving home. That makes a difference.

It doesn’t just have to be The Denver Post.; particularly local papers as well helps. When you see something in a local paper online, I’m assuming most people go online., instead of merely raging at the machine, I love raging at the machine, don’t get me wrong, instead of merely raging at the machine, write a post to that story. Because let me tell you something, newspaper editors pay attention to that stuff. And actually a lot of readers pay attention to that stuff too. When they write a story and they see a large number of comments one way or the other, that means something. We do a terrible job on our ideological side of the fence. We do a terrible job of this. I’ll go online, and my wife is watching, and she’ll say, ‘Don’t read those. Don’t read ‘em.’ And I’ll read them nonetheless. And look, people on our side don’t take the time to do that. You don’t have to put your name. You can be anonymous. You have sign up and register with your real name, but it can be absolutely anonymous.  I would challenge everyone to do this, 20 minutes, once a week. That’s what I would challenge you to do for 20 minutes, maybe 30 minutes once a week.

The other thing is, come to my website…and sign up for our e-newsletters….

So my office engages in rulemaking a lot. I just said, I’m re-doing all the campaign finance rules to make them clear. Okay. What helps me a lot, is when you come in to my office during rulemaking. You can come in person, is the best and testify. You can write us an email and that becomes part of our record. You can write us a regular letter and that becomes part of our record. The reason this is so important is, if I say, for example, I want to raise the threshold, and I did this. I held a rulemaking hearing, saying I want to raise the threshold to $5,000.  Well, what happened is people came in, and I see Matt Arnold with his hand up the entire time, and he’s one of the people who came in. I’m teasing Matt. And he said look, and other people did, this is why it’s so hard, this is the burden we face. And when I get that evidence and testimony, and I can take that evidence and testimony and use it in court to defend myself. So if you can bring your personal experiences in, that’s just so critical. Now, this particular court didn’t read any of that, so he wasn’t quite prepared, which he admitted, which is unfortunate, but I’m sure the Court of Appeals will be far more prepared than he was, and those comments are just critical for helping me out.

So, sign up for our e-newsletters, sign up for our notifications, write an email, write an email to us so you know what’s going on. Come to our rulemaking hearings. Once every two months, write a letter-to-the-editor. Twenty minutes a week, do a blog. I won’t ask anyone to contribute money to a campaign. And serve as an election judge. Those are the things you can do.

And let me tell you. If everyone in this room did those things on a consistent basis, it would make a huge impact here in the state of Colorado. It would have an impact people rarely ever see. Just the people in this room, if everyone did that on a consistent basis.

If Secretary of State Scott Gessler loses a lawsuit claiming he overstepped his legal authority by increasing the amount of money a group of people can raise before being subject to state campaign finace regulations, he will appeal the case, Gessler said Monday during a lecture at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute.

No decision has been handed down yet by a state court in the case, but Gessler told the audience last night that he “does not expect [the judge’s] opinion to be positive,” and if he loses the case, he will appeal.

GESSLER: The question is, since I have got two different court opinions on the issue committee threshold issue, how am I going to resolve that? Here is what is going to happen. We don’t have an opinion from the Denver District Court. The court just decided he wanted to say nasty things about me in the newspaper. Frankly, I have never in ten years of litigation on very controversial issues, never seen a judge behave that way in the entire state of Colorado. I was very surprised by his comments and I did not support those….

UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBER: What is his name and when is he up for retention?

GESSLER: He is up for retention in a year. Anyway, so I don’t have an opinion from him yet. I don’t expect that opinion to be positive based on his comments. So this I think is what is going to happen. First of all, we are going to appeal it. And I do believe that we will be able to point out, assuming the court comes out against us, the error of the courts ways. The second thing is, and I am pretty confident about this, is if we lose, the State of Colorado is going to be sued yet again on this issue. And again. Frankly, I fully expect that we will lose on this issue. And the claims board will have the opportunity to pay attorney fees yet again on this issue. It is an unfortunate state of affairs. I am hopeful I can prevail on this, to provide guidance on this upcoming election. But if I don’t, I have no doubt that the federal circuit court will step in and provide guidance here for the state of Colorado.

My search for an explanation from Scott Gessler about why he’s been telling the media there’s actual “fraud” in Colorado elections bore a bite of fruit last night, when I asked him about his allegations.

I respect Gessler for answering my question, even though a crowd of people was waiting in line to speak with him after his lecture at Colorado Christian University’s Centennial Institute.

I identified myself as a “liberal blogger,” and he hesitated but still responded.

I asked him about his statement, on a radio show in September, that there was actual fraud among mail ballots returned by inactive voters in Denver.

He said he was “not quite sure” he made this statement about the last election. He didn’t. He was referring to the 2009 municipal election, but the same question applies: Was there actual fraud, like he said?

In the radio interview, Gessler said there was a “pretty high incidence of fraud” in Denver’s 2009 election among ballots returned by inactive voters. Listen to Gessler’s Sept. 30 radio statement here.

Regarding 2009, Gessler told me last night:

Gessler: I think if you look at Denver, though, you’ll see in 2009, for a large number of folks, the signatures didn’t match. I think that’s an indicium of fraud, right there, when the signatures don’t match.

Jason: It’s an indication of fraud, but you wouldn’t say that it’s fraud, would you?

Gessler: I said it’s an indicium of fraud. It very well may be. It’s not been fully investigated, to my knowledge.

After Gessler alleged fraud in Denver elections in September, Denver’s Clerk and Recorder denied the accusation, and the head of the Secretary of State’s election division later testified that he was not aware of any fraud relating to ballots mailed to inactive voters.

No talk show host or reporter that I know of asked Gessler what actual factual fraud he was talking about, so I tried to fill in the gap and ask his office, but I got no comment. Until last night.

Last week, Gessler made another vague statement to a reporter in Pueblo that some mail-in ballots are fraudulent. And during his election campaign in 2010, Gessler implied illegal behavior on the part of Denver election officials.

I’d liked to have asked Gessler more questions about his allegations, but he didn’t want to discuss it further, as you can see from the transcript of my interview here.

The biggest question in my mind is, but why in the world would a Secretary of State, who’s gotta respect America’s democratic ideals even more than the rest of us, play fast and loose with the F word?

I’m sorry if this sounds all high-minded, but does Gessler understand the damage he’s potentially doing by making people think their election system, upon which we base our imperfect but respectable system of self government, is rotting around the edges, sprinkled with fraud, if not laced with it?

I can’t think of a more serious accusation a Secretary of State could make, and I’m hoping to talk more with him about why he does this, with nothing but speculation to back him up.

Jason Salzman: I’m a blogger in town.

Scott Gessler: Nice to meet you.

Jason: I’ve been trying to talk to your spokespeople, I’m a liberal blogger, about a question. I’m hoping I could ask you directly.

Gessler: Probably not.

Jason: Probably not?

Gessler: Probably not.

Jason: But hear what it is.

Gessler: I’m going to chat with some of these folks.

Jason: On the radio you said there was fraud, actual fraud, among the inactive returned ballots in the Denver election.

Gessler: I’m not quite sure that’s what I said for this particular election. I think if you look at Denver, though, you’ll see in 2009, a large number of folks, the signatures didn’t match. I think that’s an indicium of fraud, right there, when the signatures don’t match.

Jason: It’s an indication of fraud, but you wouldn’t say that it’s fraud, would you?

Gessler: I said it’s an indicium of fraud. It very well may be. It’s not been fully investigated, to my knowledge.

Jason: And statewide, any instance of fraud that you can point to?  Any single instance?

Gessler: I’ve given you my stand.

Jason: I appreciate the answer.

Gessler: Sure.

In an an article in the Pueblo Chieftain Thurs, Secretary of State Scott Gessler was quoted as saying, as he has in the past, that some mail-in ballots are fraudulent.

The Chieftain reported:

Verifying the validity of voters’ signatures on mail-in ballots also poses a challenge, according to Gessler.

“A fair number of ballots are rejected because signatures don’t match,” he said. “Signature verification is sort of a black art.”

“Signatures vary a lot, and sometimes people’s signatures don’t match what’s on file. Some are fraud, some are innocent mistakes.” [BigMedia emphasis]

You can argue about Gessler’s definition of the black arts, but the Secretary of State either has data to back up his assertion of election fraud or he doesn’t, and it’s such a serious allegation, possibly bringing into question people’s basic trust in our representative government, that a reporter shouldn’t let it slide by without reporting whether Gessler has evidence of it.

I mean, if it’s not in the public interest for all of us to know about election fraud, when it’s alleged by the Secretary of State, I don’t know what is.

So I emailed the Chieftain’s Patrick Malone, who wrote the piece, and asked if Gessler told him how many instances of fraud he’s found and when and where Gessler found them. I asked if Gessler thought Pueblo was particularly problematic, fraud-wise.

Malone responded: “On the topic of fraud, I took [Gessler] to be speaking in general terms about the statewide picture and basing it solely on his suspicions.”

I would argue that if Gessler tells a reporter that election fraud exists, and it turns out to be, in fact, based on Gessler’s suspicions without proof, then a phrase like, “Gessler could provide no proof of election fraud in Colorado,” should be included after the Gessler allegation, because it’s such a serious accusation.

The burden of proof is on Gessler to supply the proof of fraud, not on reporters to prove that his assertion of election fraud is not true.

So reporters don’t need to do any research here. Just asking for the facts and reporting the answer is what’s required.