[This transcript was generated automatically from audio using AI and hasn't been reviewed by a person -- it can contain mistakes, including plausible-sounding sentences that were never actually said. Treat it as a starting point, not a verbatim record.]

[0:50] Good morning. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining this public rulemaking hearing held in accordance with the State Administrative Procedure Act, specifically section 24-4-103 of Colorado Revised Statutes.
[1:08] Today's date is Friday, December 5th, 2025, and the time is 9.01 a.m.
[1:15] We're meeting in the Department of State's Red Rocks conference room on the fifth floor,
[1:19] the Department of State's office at 1700 Broadway, Denver, Colorado,
[1:23] hosting this rule-making hearing in person and online.
[1:27] Online attendees will remain muted until the online testimony phase of the hearing.
[1:33] Those attending in person shall remain seated until called upon during the in-person testimony
[1:38] phase.
[1:39] I'm Andrew Klein, Deputy Secretary of State, and I'm convening this hearing on behalf
[1:44] of the Secretary of State in accordance with the rulemaking notice that we issued on
[1:48] October 31, 2025.
[1:51] That notice was also published in the Colorado Register November 10, 2025.
[1:57] Several additional members of the Department of State staff are present as panel members
[2:02] otherwise facilitating this meeting.
[2:05] My immediate right, Judge Chote, Vision Director, Elections Division.
[2:09] My immediate left, Caleb Thornton, Legal Unit Manager, Elections Division.
[2:15] To the right of Mr. Chote, Theresa Connolly, Strategic Legal and Policy Manager, Elections
[2:20] Division.
[2:21] To the right of Ms. Connolly, Dwight Schellman, Annie Support Manager, Elections
[2:26] Division, the left of Caleb is Shannon Kenney, Policy Analyst Administrative.
[2:34] Purpose of this hearing is to review comments from the public on proposed amendments to
[2:37] the election rules to ensure uniform and proper administration, implementation, and enforcement
[2:44] of Colorado elections.
[2:45] Specifically the Department proposes permanent rule revisions for instant run-off voting
[2:50] including requirements for tabulation, hoarding, canvassing of results, and risk-limiting audits for local jurisdictions located in more than one county, as required by sections 1-7-18-5 and 1-7-515-4B1 of the Colorado Rules.
[3:16] The department may consider additional rule amendments, including revisions necessary to eliminate obsolete provisions, organize existing rules for clarity, simplify the language of existing rules, remove language that is duplicative to statute, and ensure consistency with the department rulemaking standards.
[3:35] The Department of State released a preliminary draft of proposed rules with a notice of rulemaking.
[3:41] All documents are available on the department's website, which is linked in the chat of the webinar.
[3:46] Poppies are also available on the table at the back of the conference room.
[3:52] This is a formal rulemaking hearing that is broadcast live and over the Internet.
[3:56] This hearing is audio-recorded and all comments become part of the official rulemaking record.
[4:02] For anyone who wishes to testify in person, you must fill out sign-in sheet, table, at the back of the room.
[4:10] For the record, our office has received written comments and the proposed rules.
[4:14] All comments received during the comment period become part of the official record of this rulemaking when we post it online.
[4:22] When you begin your testimony, please introduce yourselves for the record.
[4:25] If you represent an organization or other interested party, please identify the organization
[4:31] or party you are speaking on behalf of.
[4:33] In the interest of time, I would request that you simply avoid repeating the testimony
[4:38] of others.
[4:40] All the testimony is limited to three minutes in order to ensure that everyone has the
[4:44] opportunity to speak.
[4:47] Additionally, please address your comments to me, the hearing officer, and refrain
[4:50] from directing comments to other panel members.
[4:53] When speaking about a particular provision in the proposed rules, it will assist the
[4:57] process if you say the rule number that you're addressing.
[5:00] Rule number is listed in the revised draft of the proposed rules.
[5:04] If you don't know the rule number, please simply state the general topic of the proposed
[5:08] rule that you wish to address.
[5:11] The sake of efficiency in-person speakers will be called upon first to provide their
[5:15] testimony.
[5:16] We will reference the sign-in sheet and individually call upon those interested
[5:20] in providing testimony in the order in which they signed in.
[5:24] Once we've exhausted that sign-in sheet,
[5:27] we'll move forward to the online testimony.
[5:29] We will first reference the online registration records
[5:32] and individually unmute those
[5:34] who indicated interest in providing testimony.
[5:38] Pre-registered speakers will be called upon
[5:40] in the order in which they register.
[5:42] After we've exhausted the list of the pre-registered speakers,
[5:45] we'll call upon online attendees to use the hand raise icon
[5:49] to indicate that they wish to speak. For all online speakers, we will announce your
[5:53] name and state when you're unmuted. When you finish, we will meet you again and move
[5:58] down the list.
[6:27] We'll now begin the in-person phase of the testimony period,
[6:32] and we'll ask Salise D'Landry,
[6:38] to merge the podium.
[6:45] Good morning.
[6:48] Thank you for
[6:49] having this rule-making testimony. My name is Salise D'Landry and I'm
[6:54] representing the League of Women Voters of Colorado.
[6:57] We are very pleased that the Department of State
[7:00] is writing rules for multi-county instant runoff voting
[7:04] elections, or IRV elections.
[7:08] As far as I know, no jurisdiction
[7:10] has adopted instant runoff voting.
[7:14] No multi-county jurisdiction has adopted instant runoff
[7:19] voting conditional upon these rules being promulgated.
[7:22] so I commend the proactive moving forward with these rules. Colorado has a high standard
[7:34] for its election, so I know that you are taking this job very seriously, and I know that there
[7:42] are lots of people who have submitted comments or will be submitting them soon.
[7:47] The League of Women Voters is hopeful that the Department of State will soon write rules for the other type of ranked voting allowed in 1-7-1003 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, namely single transferable vote or STV.
[8:07] As the instant runoff voting rules are written, please consider using broad language so that whenever possible the rules are also applicable to STV.
[8:19] We also have some recommendations around terminology with the goal of providing a good description and consistency throughout the election rules.
[8:29] rules.
[8:30] Those are not as interesting to talk about, so they are in the written testimony.
[8:37] And we also submitted a letter to the Colorado Secretary of State's office, including two
[8:48] people on this dais, Judge Chote and Dwight Schellman received it.
[8:53] I have a copy of it here if you need another copy from the League of Women Voters.
[8:58] It's dated September 10th, 2025, we are asking for the promulgation of rules for the proportional ranked voting method known as single transferable vote.
[9:09] And STV has been authorized since the enactment of House Bill 8-1378, but no county clerk will run an STV election and they have been asked to do so.
[9:24] So it's time to help municipalities and county clerks conduct not just multi-county instant runoff voting elections, but also multi-county single transferable vote elections. Thank you very much.
[9:49] That concludes the in-person testimony phase. We'll now reference the list of those who indicated they wish to assist.
[9:55] We
[10:05] have clerk Stephanie Noza, election director Stephanie Noza.
[10:18] There are two
[10:19] online I have unmuted both.
[10:26] Hi can you hear me?
[10:30] We cannot really let me.
[10:34] Could you
[10:35] try again?
[10:38] Yes we can hear you now.
[10:44] I'm Stephanie Noza, Boulder County elections
[10:46] Director, and my comments today are on behalf of Boulder County.
[10:51] Boulder would like to say that we support the idea, as in the proposed rules, that
[10:58] four cross-county ranked voting elections, additional responsibilities will fall to
[11:02] the controlling county, and we support the idea of utilizing a certified third-party
[11:07] software for tabulation in these contests.
[11:10] However, we would like to advocate that this third-party software be hosted by the Secretary's
[11:16] Office similar to how election night reporting is already hosted and that it is not required
[11:22] to be installed on a county's voting system.
[11:25] We believe this is the right approach for several key reasons, but firstly, the Secretary's
[11:32] Office already performs this function for cross-county and statewide plurality races
[11:36] in their election night reporting.
[11:40] It also preserves the voting system's ecosystem and does not require that a controlling county
[11:46] upload results files from another county into their voting system.
[11:51] It also would allow counties to upload results as they are available on reducing some of
[11:59] the manual steps and coordination as currently proposed.
[12:03] We believe there's adequate time to work on a solution like this and would be interested
[12:09] in partnering with you to design and test it.
[12:12] While we are not currently a county that might be in this position, we know that a municipality
[12:19] where Boulder will be the controlling county if adopted would be in this position possibly
[12:25] around October of 2027.
[12:31] should the Secretary's office oppose this approach, we would then advocate to have the
[12:38] Controlling County host the third-party software still off the voting system, which would achieve
[12:45] many of the same benefits.
[12:47] Two other areas that I'd like to highlight are Canvas Board, so we would like to advocate
[12:53] that the Canvas Board of the Controlling County is the Board to provide
[12:58] certification, primarily as they are the entity already proposed to confirm the
[13:03] tabulation as part of the logic and accuracy test. And then secondly, regarding
[13:08] the logic and accuracy testing, we would advocate to simplify these proposed
[13:12] rules and have the Controlling County be responsible for ensuring that the
[13:17] compiled tabulation goes past Round 1. We do have additional technical
[13:22] and our written comments, and I'm happy to talk about those or any of these points.
[13:32] Stephanie, thanks for your comments. This is Caleb.
[13:36] If assuming the software does not need to be placed on voting system components,
[13:40] because I don't think that is our intent with these rules,
[13:45] though maybe they could have been affected in a way that was unclear.
[13:48] I'm sure that's probably what's happened here, but assuming that that is not an issue,
[13:54] Do you have any other questions or concerns
[13:56] about the certification process of the third-party software
[14:00] if that is taken away?
[14:04] I would say generally speaking, no.
[14:07] I didn't currently provide lying comments.
[14:10] And because you are correct, we did interpret them
[14:12] as being required to be on the voting system.
[14:17] But what I will say is, generally speaking,
[14:19] we do support that they are certified by your office
[14:22] because we think that provides a level of both independence for the counties and transparency
[14:28] and support for public confidence in the elections. And I would say that I will go back and read
[14:35] them through that lens. And if I do have additional comments, can provide those.
[14:41] Great. Thank you.
[14:48] Morning, Stephanie. This is Dwight Schellman. Thank you for your comments.
[14:56] In your view,
[14:57] does one
[15:00] 17118 carve out a role for the secretary of state's office to perform the ultimately final
[15:10] tabulation for a multi-county IRB race. And specifically, I'm referring to 17118 for B.
[15:24] And to me, that statute requires each canvas to certify their abstract to the DEO of the municipality that is coordinating the multi-county IR.
[15:41] Under the current statutory scheme, I personally don't see a role as Secretary of State.
[15:48] I'm wondering if I've overlooked something and you do.
[15:55] Thanks, Dwight.
[15:57] Sue, we did consider this and kind of we did debate back and forth about the best way to achieve the compiled results,
[16:06] because we do appreciate that the compilation of the ranked results is slightly more complicated than plurality,
[16:14] although in the grand scheme of things still relatively simple mathematics.
[16:20] So we don't see a role in which the Secretary's office is expected to certify the results.
[16:26] We do understand that that is probably a step outside the bounds of statute,
[16:31] which is why we do still propose that the controlling county or the runoff tabulation entity as now defined
[16:39] would be the entity that certifies the accuracy of the tabulation as part of the logic and
[16:44] accuracy testing, and then also would be the Canvas board to certify the compiled results.
[16:52] I think our proposal is centered around the fact that the state already has infrastructure
[16:58] to receive voting systems data and reporting from counties on, you know, throughout election
[17:04] night and in the days that follow on any schedule that county is processing under and so we would
[17:10] like to see the infrastructure be set up in a way that we could leverage both that process
[17:16] and all of the controls around those processes around validity of files the hashing of files
[17:22] and we have mild concerns I would say not knowing the third party software
[17:28] where if each county or each controlling county for that matter would have to host it individually
[17:33] would there be variations?
[17:35] We also think the hosting of the software would remove a lot of the complications that
[17:42] the current proposed rules create in terms of timing, in terms of handoffs, in terms
[17:49] of a controlling county needing to potentially work days that they were not intending
[17:55] to work, if the subordinate county, if you will, processes valid.
[18:01] So, that's the reason for our proposal for the hosting.
[18:05] But we do think that the control and county should be the one to certify the results.
[18:10] Thank you.
[18:18] Great.
[18:19] Thank you so much.
[18:20] And apologies for the sun promotion.
[18:22] No worries.
[18:24] Understand.
[18:25] Thank you.
[18:26] And you're now being muted.
[18:30] Next we have,
[18:36] we have Yahya Immalik and they are not present.
[18:50] We have an Amanda Redden, they're also not present.
[19:00] There is also a Nancy Marais and Nancy is also not present.
[19:09] There is also a Jeremiah Attridge, I'm unmuting you now.
[19:17] Hi, are you able to hear me?
[19:19] Yes, thank you.
[19:21] Cool, thank you.
[19:22] Good morning, Deputy Director.
[19:24] My name is Jeremiah Adridge.
[19:25] I'm a student at the University of Colorado Law School here in my capacity as a
[19:29] citizen of Colorado.
[19:32] I wanted to begin by saying that I'm in full support of the changes that the
[19:36] department has proposed here.
[19:38] I believe that these updates have the capacity to make a meaningful
[19:40] difference in the state's ability to tabulate election results.
[19:44] My only concern today relates to the wording.
[19:47] in section 21127A regarding the decertification of software that's been certified as an amendment
[19:56] to a certified voting system.
[19:58] I wonder whether the decertification process could benefit from a broader and more clearly
[20:03] articulated set of criteria to guide when the Department of State decides to decertify
[20:08] such software.
[20:11] With that said, I'd like to reiterate my support for the proposed changes and thank
[20:15] you for your time.
[20:15] That's all.
[20:22] Thank you.
[20:24] Thank you, Mr. Attridge. I will mute you now.
[20:28] Oops.
[20:30] Oops.
[20:32] Sorry.
[20:37] And those are all who pre-registered online.
[20:48] There are the other attendees who wish to testify online, so please raise your hand by clicking the icon on the panel.
[21:02] Then we have a Neil McBurnett.
[21:08] I'm unmuting you now.
[21:13] Thank you. Can you hear me?
[21:15] Yes, we can.
[21:17] Thank you. This is Neil McBurnett. I introduced risk limiting audits into the state of Colorado,
[21:24] and I have worked for a long time on transparency issues,
[21:29] and I appreciate the effort that has gone into this proposed rulemaking.
[21:34] speaking.
[21:37] And I'm speaking on my own behalf. I will have written testimony to provide, but
[21:44] I've also read the Jefferson County submission and they raise a point that I think is important
[21:54] to consider in terms of clarity around what the word tabulation means. It's used in a
[22:01] different ways. So I agree that we need to change that, use more specific terms, but
[22:11] I think it should go the other way than they suggest. I think tabulation around the world
[22:19] for IRV and STV and other things refers only to the round-by-round ranked choice counting
[22:26] process and the term central count is used in distinguishing from precinct count to talk
[22:35] about where the interpretation of the ballots, the scanning of the ballots happens, so I would
[22:43] recommend that those terms be used consistently with how they're used in Colorado and elsewhere
[22:51] and the language be clarified to call out which kind of tabulation. There's a
[22:59] third kind of process that is important for ranked voting contests and
[23:11] tabulation, which is what we call a ranking profile. It is essentially a
[23:20] summarized CAS vote record that indicates for every unique way that someone
[23:30] has ranked the choices it provides the number of times that was ranked and that
[23:39] is the input that you need to process in the third-party software that has
[23:44] been discussed. So we should introduce a proper term for that. I would propose
[23:51] ranking profile and right now the statute uses the term tabulation data
[24:00] which as I just noted is a little bit unusual and the rule uses the term
[24:06] results file which again sounds like you've you're presenting the actual
[24:12] results, but a county can't produce the results file, that's why they need to send their ranking
[24:18] profile of the ballots they received up to the entity that does the final tabulation.
[24:26] So I'll give you written clarity on that, but I suggest that we go in that direction.
[24:32] And more importantly, I want to urge
[24:37] that those ranking profiles, that data,
[24:42] that is the input to the third party software
[24:44] be provided early and often.
[24:49] What we saw in Alameda, California in 2022,
[24:53] a school board contest that was improperly certified,
[24:57] they actually got the wrong winner
[24:58] in the certified election and it took the eventual sharing of their ranking
[25:10] profiles and CAS vote records and recalculation with the proper set of
[25:16] rules to discover that problem. This is especially a problem with rank voting
[25:22] methods because there are so many ways to handle where somebody skips a
[25:28] ranking and what happens if they use a write-in vote for the first ranking and just all kinds
[25:35] of things can go wrong and did go wrong and have gone wrong under other circumstances.
[25:40] So it's critical that Colorado avoid those problems and publish the data that is used
[25:50] to calculate the results any time they provide results.
[25:55] San Francisco does this. They actually provide a full cast vote record every night and every time they present results.
[26:05] And this is important for people to verify that everything worked properly.
[26:13] Mr. McBernadine, I just need to ask you to wrap up where I think beyond the three minutes, please.
[26:17] Okay. Thank you very much. I think that's important, and if that is not done, I think there should be a public meeting in order with representatives of the candidates present to do the final, whether you call it canvassing or certification of the outcome.
[26:39] I think it's very important to have public visibility and a chance to correct that kind of error in the process.
[26:49] Thank you.
[26:50] Mr. Schellman.
[26:52] Good morning, Neil. This is Dwight Schellman. Just to clarify your point, are you suggesting or proposing that the non-controlling counties in a multi-county IRB contest
[27:08] provide the controlling county both with their whole CDR file and called the
[27:19] ranking profile? Not at all. No, I think they should provide the ranking profile.
[27:25] Boulder provided to the public their what I'll call a ranking profile. It
[27:30] it didn't have information on the location and precinct and style of each ranking.
[27:41] It only provided the rankings themselves so that avoids anonymity issues that I know that
[27:47] you're intimately aware of and we've been working on for years.
[27:51] So this is a way to provide full transparency for the tabulation without those issues.
[27:59] and it's separate from the places where it is indeed very critical that the
[28:04] CAS vote record itself in redacted form be available to the public early and
[28:10] often because for the public to observe the RLA that's also very important but
[28:14] that's not what I'm talking about for the tabulation check that we're talking
[28:18] about here. Got it. Thank you very much. And I like Boulder's suggestion that the
[28:23] DSOS host the software, I think that simplifies everybody's life, except yours, and
[28:35] maybe yours.
[28:37] Thank you, Neil.
[28:39] Thank you.
[28:40] I'm muting you now, Mr. McBurnett.
[28:45] Next we have Linda Templin, I'm muting you now.
[28:53] Ms. Templin has unraised her hand.
[28:59] Oh, she's back.
[29:03] You are unmuted.
[29:12] Okay.
[29:12] You can hear me now?
[29:13] Yes, we can.
[29:14] Thank you.
[29:15] Okay.
[29:16] My name is Linda Templin.
[29:18] I'm the Executive Director of Ranked Choice Voting for Colorado.
[29:21] data. And I wanted to underscore a few things that have been previously stated as also being
[29:33] in our view very important to consistent and consistent and concise rulemaking. The first
[29:46] being that in 2027 there may be a multi-county jurisdiction using single transferable vote.
[29:54] And as such we suggest that the Office of the Secretary of State use language that
[30:00] That encompasses both instant runoff voting and single transferrable vote. So that's our
[30:07] first suggestion and our second is to also underscore the points made by the Boulder, the office of
[30:18] their county clerk, that prior policy inputs from the county clerk's association has been
[30:26] that they prefer to have all the rules promulgated by the Secretary of State for the sake of consistency
[30:33] between jurisdictions.
[30:35] And it is possible that in future years, less well-resourced rural counties would be using
[30:47] single transferable vote, and they absolutely need the Secretary of State's office to
[30:54] handle as much as possible. And that's those are my comments. I'll be submitting
[31:00] written online.
[31:07] Thank you so much. I will be muting you now. At this time there are
[31:12] no other raised hands. Is there anyone else who wishes to testify?
[31:22] Is a Lori
[31:23] Stevens who has raised their hand.
[31:29] You are unmuted. Thank you. I am a Canvas
[31:34] board member for Broomfield County and I have only one comment to I want to add to Neil McBurnett's
[31:41] testimony which is one of the things that he mentioned was making the cast foot records
[31:46] available as he said early and often and as a as a canvas board member I would like additional
[31:53] ways to possibly do my own validation of the of the tabulations you know from that that data
[32:01] And so, while it's a bigger subject, in general, I want to emphasize, and this is in our – I
[32:06] believe in Neil's written comments as well, that we provide ways in which – by making
[32:15] the CASVOID records public, when possible, that gives the opportunity for independent
[32:23] validation of the computation and the sums of the totals that I value as a
[32:31] Canvas board member because it increases my ability to fulfill my
[32:36] responsibility to certify the result of the election. That's all, thank you.
[32:46] Thank you, I'm muting you now.
[32:51] And Ms. Nimmick-Burnett has also
[32:53] re-raised his hand.
[33:00] We'll give you a few more minutes, but please try to
[33:03] respect the three limit to the best of your ability.
[33:07] I very much appreciate that and only have a couple of brief supports for other things.
[33:14] I also absolutely support Celeste Landry's testimony for the Lee woman voters to try
[33:26] to include single transferable vote as much as possible by making the language here broad
[33:34] and inclusive and I thank Linda Templin for making the same point.
[33:38] I think that's the best voting method that we could have for most elections with multi-member
[33:46] councils and getting that underway is important and I appreciate Lori's comments about
[33:53] other good reasons for having the cast vote record available,
[33:58] and we have software that can help do the redaction of those cast vote records
[34:03] for the other auditing purposes.
[34:06] Thank you so much.
[34:14] At this time, there are no other people who have raised their hand.
[34:19] Is there anyone else who would like to testify?
[34:28] I'd like to thank everyone who provided testimony today.
[34:31] I thought the comments were extremely helpful and respectful.
[34:35] I particularly like to thank Stephanie and by extension Molly for their steadfast public
[34:41] service to the county of Boulder.
[34:44] That concludes this public rulemaking hearing.
[34:49] Our office will take on our advisement possible amendments to the Department of State's election
[34:53] rules have been discussed or otherwise proposed through the rulemaking process.
[34:58] The record will be an open through 5 p.m. Friday, December 12th, 2025 to allow the
[35:04] submission of Lab 4, the submission of additional written comments, please email
[35:09] written comments to SOS dot rulemaking at Colorado SOS dot gov. That's SOS dot
[35:20] rulemaking at Colorado SOS dot gov. That concludes today's hearing. Time is 9
[35:27] 36 in the morning.