House approves confidentiality option for first responders' voter registration addresses

The Colorado House adopted House Bill 11‑95 on Monday, creating a specific option for first responders and their spouses to request that their home addresses and voter registration records be kept confidential by county clerks or the Secretary of State.

Sponsors said the bill uses existing procedures and creates a subcategory for first responders who may not meet the standard for “immediate danger” but whose job exposes them to variable risk. Representative Johnson, a sponsor of the bill, described the measure as allowing first responders who “feel unsafe” due to the nature of their job to swear or affirm a confidential-voter status without asserting immediate and present danger.

Floor discussion included committee report votes and an appropriations committee amendment that, sponsors said, zeroed out fiscal impacts. The House adopted the Appropriations Committee report and later adopted the bill on voice vote.

Supporters described the policy as a public-safety and democratic-participation measure intended to reduce a barrier to voting among law enforcement, emergency medical personnel and other first responders. The bill directs clerks and the Secretary of State to apply existing confidentiality processes to the newly defined category and does not, in sponsors’ words, create new public-record exemptions beyond existing confidential-voter mechanisms.

The bill passed on the floor after committee reports were adopted; the adoption was announced by the presiding officer and recorded by the clerk as the bill being “adopted.”