Scott Gessler won't intimidate us on election day, Latino groups say

Sam Levin

Scott Gessler promoting his registration ad campaign.

These organizations are especially concerned about controversial groups like True the Vote -- Gessler appeared alongside members at a recent conservative panel -- that are expected to challenge voters at the polls.

True the Vote opponents will be on site to stop any intimidation or coercion, said Jose Sanchez, program assistant with Mi Familia.

"SEIU is also going to clear out its headquarters and field offices of lawyers," says Medina, a Mi Familia Vota board member. "We are going to deploy them to all the states where we think there is going to be potential voter suppression, including Colorado...whatever it takes to protect people's rights to vote."

Rich Coolidge, spokesman for Gessler, sent us this strongly worded statement yesterday in response to the accusations and criticisms of these advocacy groups:

Just in time for Halloween, these partisan attack groups are telling horror stories about ghosts and goblins. Obviously, their partisanship blinds them from the facts. Gessler initiated the largest voter registration effort in Colorado history, which includes 400,000 more voters this election than 2008 and that number continues to grow. That effort also included Spanish language ads, which has never been done before by any other secretary of state. Since September 1, new registrations from Democrats outnumbered Republicans almost 2 to 1. It's obvious these partisan claims ring (sleepy) hollow as they try and trick, not treat, voters into believing they're non-partisan.

After Gessler's office announced the initial results of registration last week, Fox31 reported that Democrats in the final weeks before the deadline, have outpaced the Republicans in signing up to vote.

Regardless of this back-and-forth, Latino voters are expected to come out in big numbers in November. At least, that's what a poll released last week from Latino Decisions and America's Voice says.

Based on an interviews with 400 Latino registered voters in Colorado, the polling found that 69 percent of Latino voters in the state are enthusiastic about voting in 2012 and 54 percent indicated greater enthusiasm for this election compared to 2008.

Additionally, 64 percent of respondents said they would vote Democrat, 15 percent said they would vote Republican and 12 percent said they are undecided.

"[Colorado] could be the deciding state in this election, and the Latino vote will be the deciding vote in this state," Medina said.

More from our Immigration archive: "Out of fourteen illegal voters banned after Scott Gessler's campaign, how many voted? Zero"

Follow Sam Levin on Twitter at @SamTLevin. E-mail the author at Sam.Levin@Westword.com.