In case you missed it, U.S. Senator John Hickenlooper appeared last night on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon to discuss the MLB’s decision to move the All Star Game to Denver and how he helped Colorado become the third third state in the country to implement universal vote-by-mail. Colorado has one of the highest voter turnout rates nationally and our elections are considered some of the most accessible and secure.
Watch HERE, or see highlights below.
On the nonpartisanship of voting by mail:
Hickenlooper: “When we switched over to all mail ballots in 2013, that next year in 2014, we had the highest turnout ever. We had no incidents of fraudulent voting in any way. We had a statistically accurate assessment done.” At the same time, Cory Gardner, my predecessor, got elected to the U.S. Senate.
“This isn’t partisan. It’s about trying to make it easier to vote and thereby encouraging more people to pay attention, get involved in the issues, and vote.”
On false comparisons between Colorado election laws and the new Georgia law:
Hickenlooper: “It doesn’t hold up. I mean the bottom line is we sent everybody a paper ballot. Now, we don’t have as many days of early voting because almost everybody, over 95% of our voters vote by mail because they’ve gotten into the rhythm of it, the pattern of it…
“The notion that somehow their system is comparable to what Colorado has, in Georgia they have one lockbox for every 100,000 voters. In Colorado, I think it’s every 6,000 or every 8,000 voters. So there are many, many more places where you can drop off your ballots and know that they’re going to get counted. The systems are very, very different.”
On the bipartisan effort to create safe and accessible Colorado election laws:
Hickenlooper: “The key is what we tried to do in Colorado is get more people to vote every election. What people forget is that Colorado’s system was created by Republican and Democratic county clerks working together. The majority were Republicans, and they had a shared vision that they wanted more people to vote. They wanted to someday get to 100 percent voting, that’s the vision. Isn’t that what democracy should be based on?”
On the opportunity investing in American infrastructure represents:
Hickenlooper: “I think infrastructure is exactly the right next step. I mean people have been talking about Franklin Roosevelt and the Great Depression. It’s really more similar to the years after World War II where this country invested in infrastructure at every level and made investments over the next 12 or 15 years that paid dividends for the citizens of this country for 50, 60, 70 years. And we can do that again, and we have to do that again. The world’s changing. We’ve got to re-energize our economy and our ability to compete on the world stage.”
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