input: [Bill #] SB12-155 [Short Title] Transparency Of Elections & CORA [Sponsors] HEATH / COURT [Most Recent Status] 05/08/2012 House Committee on State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Refer Unamended to House Committee of the Whole [Calendar Notification] NOT ON CALENDAR [News Links] No news items found [Bill Summary] 
output: The bill prohibits the designated election official (official) from fulfilling a request under the "Colorado Open Records Act" (CORA) for the public inspection of either ballots or ballot images arising out of any election in the state during the period commencing with the 45th day preceding election day and concluding with the date by which the official is required to certify an official abstract of votes cast for the applicable candidate contest or ballot issue or ballot question. The stay required by the bill does not apply to a recount undertaken as provided by law. As with other public records open for inspection by the public under CORA, an interested party may inspect ballots in connection with the recount without having to obtain a court order granting such inspection. In connection with the public inspection of ballots that an interested party is authorized to undertake in connection with a recount, the bill permits an interested party to witness the handling of ballots involved in the recount to verify that the recount is being conducted in a fair, impartial, and uniform manner so as to determine that all ballots that have been cast are accurately interpreted and counted but prohibits the interested party from handling the original ballots. Prior to and later than the stay period required by the bill, election records and ballots are required to be made available for inspection by the public in accordance with the following requirements: * The original election records or ballots are required to remain in the custody of the official or his or her designee. In the discretion of the official or his or her designee, and subject to the requirements of the bill and existing CORA requirements, the official or his or her designee is obligated to determine the manner in which such records or ballots may be viewed by the public. * The designated election official or his or her designee is required to cover or redact, based upon the most practical means available, any markings or message on a ballot that may identify the particular elector who cast the ballot before the ballot may be made available for public inspection; * To protect the privacy of particular electors, any ballots cast by electors within groups of discrete individuals who are more susceptible of being personally identified, such as military and overseas electors, shall be made available for public inspection only to the extent such ballots may be duplicated without identifying elector information. Insofar as such ballots are not able to be duplicated without identifying elector information, they are not available for public inspection. The bill prohibits any ballot, or any portions or pages of a ballot, from being made available for inspection where the ballot, or any portion thereof, is identical in such form, considering a combination of the election contests at issue and precinct coding, to only 9 or fewer ballots, or portions thereof, among all ballots used in the same election. However, any such ballot, or any portion thereof, that is equal in such form to 10 or more ballots, or any portions thereof, used in the same election may be inspected. * To protect the privacy of particular electors, ballots made available for inspection may be presented in any random order selected by the official or his or her designee; * For the purpose of minimizing the costs of making ballots available for public inspection, the person seeking the inspection may indicate the candidate contest, ballot issue, or ballot question for which the person seeks to inspect the ballots; and * Any actual costs incurred by the office of the official in making the election records and ballots available for inspection may be charged to the person requesting the inspection of the records or ballots. If the official selects a person other than an employee of his or her office to conduct the duties required by the bill, the actual costs to be charged the person seeking inspection are limited to the actual costs that would have been incurred if the work involved in complying with the requirements of the bill was completed by an employee of the official. The bill specifies that its provisions shall not affect either the ability of a person to serve as a watcher or the operation of a canvass board.