First, a little background, by masondav2004's kos diary Election rights groups sue Colorado SoS Coffman over Illegal Voter Purges
So it comes as little surprise that Mike Coffman has pulled out all the stops in using his official position to carry Colorado for the GOP in the upcoming election.
Thankfully, election rights advocates in Colorado are working hard to make sure Coffman fails to deliver.
Today, the AP Press writer, Colleen Slevin writes
DENVER—Election watchdog groups have agreed to wait until Wednesday to make their case about why they think election officials have illegally removed thousands of people from Colorado's registration rolls.
Groups including Colorado Common Cause and the Advancement Project want U.S. District Judge John Kane to first stop clerks from removing the names of any more voters before Election Day and then order Secretary of State Mike Coffman to reinstate an estimated 30,000 voters they believe were wrongly purged.
With only a week left before Election Day, Kane was going to take up the first issue during a hearing Monday until he could hear more about why the groups think that voters were illegally purged.
However, Colorado Deputy Attorney General Maurice Knaizer requested that Kane address both of them at the same time. With clerks busy preparing for an expected record turnout on Nov. 4 and conducting early voting, Knaizer said it would be easier to give them one final directive about the registrations in dispute rather than a half-answer that could be overturned after the evidence is heard.
I have checked and while this is not a specific issue in my local county (Broomfield,) Colorado could be close enough whereby this number of votes could swing the election here, and perhaps nationally.
I did a little research into the judge, John L. Kane, U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, and I am cautiously optimistic.
He seems to have a reasonably progressive and dare I say it, people friendly outlook in the more public cases I've seen, such as ordering Dow Chemical and Rockwell International to pay residents for contamination from the now-defunct Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant, ordering I.C.E. to return to state custody, detainees from the Greeley meatpacking raid and a very liberal view on the failure of the drugwar.
Of course, nothing can be taken for granted, but there is perhaps cause for some optimism in seeing these voter registrations reinstated, in accordance with Federal statutes.
As noted later in the AP piece
Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered election officials in Michigan to stop automatically canceling registrations for similar reasons.