This week, Colorado lawmakers introduced two bills related to voting.
One bill would allow election judges to use a signature verification device to verify mail ballots instead of personally conducting a review of every ballot. The bill would also let the election judges use a team of bipartisan election judges to review mail ballots for signature verification.
The other bill would allow the secretary of state or various executive directors of state departments to cancel noncitizens’ voter registrations.
Also introduced this week is a bill that would require the Division of Criminal Justice in the Department of Public Safety to apply for, accept and expend federal or other available grant money that would improve the state’s response to mass shootings, including grant money for support services for victims of mass shootings.
Bill Number: HB25-1089
Title: County Mail Ballot Signature Verification Requirements
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: C. Richardson, M. Baisley
Summary: Currently, in every mail ballot election coordinated with or conducted by a county clerk and recorder, a single election judge personally conducts the review of each mail ballot for purposes of signature verification, unless the county clerk and recorder allows the election judge to use a signature verification device. The bill authorizes the county clerk and recorder to allow a team of bipartisan election judges, rather than a single election judge, to review mail ballots for purposes of signature verification.
Bill Number: SB25-057
Title: Noncitizen Voter Registration Cancellation
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: M. Baisley, C. Richardson
Summary: The bill requires the secretary of state to forward quarterly to each county clerk and recorder the information received from the executive directors of the Department of Revenue, the Department of Public Health and Environment and the Department of Corrections and the State Court Administrator. It also requires a county clerk and recorder to cancel the voter registration of any elector who is not a citizen according to the information received from the secretary of state. Additionally, the secretary of state may electronically cancel the voter registration of any elector who is not a citizen.
Bill Number: SB25-059
Title: Supports for State Response to Mass Shootings
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: T. Sullivan, S. Woodrow
Summary: The bill requires the Division of Criminal Justice in the Department of Public Safety to apply for and accept and expend federal or other available grant money to improve the state’s response to mass shootings, including grant money to support services for victims of mass shootings.
Bill Number: SB25-062
Title: Failure to Appear Charges in Municipal Court
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: N. Hinrichsen, M. Weissman, M. Carter, S. Bird
Summary: The bill prohibits a person’s failure to appear from forming the basis of a municipal criminal charge against the person and prohibits a municipal judge from imposing a jail sentence for a person’s failure to appear. The bill adds the failure to appear and contempt of court for the failure to appear prohibitions to the list of state laws that cannot be superseded by a charter or ordinance enacted by a home-rule city.
Bill Number: SB25-065
Title: Indemnification of Peace Officers’ Criminal Conduct
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: M. Baisley, C. Richardson
Summary: The bill clarifies that a public entity is not required to pay any portion of the civil judgment or settlement if the peace officer’s underlying conduct resulted in the peace officer’s criminal conviction unless the public entity played a causal role in the violation.
Bill Number: SB25-066
Title: State Contracts with Opioid Antagonist Businesses
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: P. Lundeen, K. Mullica
Summary: Under current law, the opioid antagonist bulk purchase fund allows the Department of Public Health and Environment to bulk purchase opioid antagonists and distribute them to eligible entities. In contracting for the bulk purchasing and distribution of opioid antagonists, the bill requires the department to contract with an opioid antagonist medication distributor. However, the bill prohibits the department from contracting with an opioid antagonist medication distributor if the distributor was found liable for the manufacture or distribution of an opioid that resulted in an opioid-related overdose, among other provisions.
Bill Number: SB25-067
Title: Prosecution Fellowship Program Changes
Introduced: Jan. 22
Sponsors: C. Simpson, D. Roberts, M. Martinez, T. Winter
Summary: A prosecution fellowship program in the Department of Higher Education provides money to the Colorado District Attorneys’ Council to fund fellowships for people who have recently graduated from a law school in Colorado to allow them to pursue careers as prosecutors in rural Colorado. The program, through a prosecution fellowship committee, places up to six fellows in rural district attorneys’ offices throughout the state each year. The bill changes the prosecutor fellowship program to provide fellowship funding to rural district attorneys’ offices to recruit and hire new deputy district attorneys rather than selecting and placing fellows in rural district attorneys’ offices.
Bill Number: SB25-083
Title: Limitations on Restrictive Employment Agreements
Introduced: Jan. 23
Sponsors: L. Daugherty, L. Frizell, K. Brown, L. Garcia Sander
Summary: Under current law, there is an exemption from the general prohibition against covenants not to compete. The exemption allows for a covenant not to compete under specified conditions governing an individual who earns an amount of annualized cash compensation equivalent to or greater than the threshold amount for highly compensated workers. The bill excludes from the highly compensated worker exemption a covenant not to compete that restricts the practice of medicine, the practice of advanced practice registered nursing or the practice of dentistry in Colorado.
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