Senate passes Colorado Voting Rights Act after debate over multilingual ballots, remedies and election-data disclosures

Senators passed Senate Bill 1, the Colorado Voting Rights Act, on final passage after adopting a series of clarifying amendments addressing multilingual ballots, remedies for alleged violations, and procedures for sharing election data and notifications.

Sponsor Senator Cyndi Gonzales, who carried the bill on the floor, described the measure as an effort to strengthen the administration of elections and to address vote dilution, tribal voting protections, multilingual access and precinct-level data for the statewide election database. “L 20 is crafted in order to ensure specificity for the notice related to voting information given by institutions that house people with disabilities…,” Gonzales said when offering the first amendment to the bill.

The bill moved through three major amendment packages the sponsor offered on the floor. Amendment L20 clarified notice language for institutions serving people with disabilities and required that precinct-level data be submitted to the statewide election database where available. Amendment L21 created an exemption for municipalities with populations under 3,000 from the multilingual…