Political group to sue Secretary of State's office

DENVER – A local political group plans to file a lawsuit against the Colorado Secretary of State's office Friday.

“I think we have a system and there’s strong evidence that it’s broken,” said Coloradans for Equal Opportunity President Melissa Hart.

She says as many as 5,300 hundred signatures were improperly tossed out by the Secretary of State’s office.

As a result, the group’s push to get affirmative action-related Initiative 82 on the ballot in November failed.

The Secretary of State’s office ruled the signatures were not those of registered voters, but Hart says that’s untrue.

She believes there was likely a data entry error when petitioners’ information was put into the state computer.

9NEWS took a random sampling of names from the petition that were rejected and compared them with active voter registrations. We found many of them to be legitmate voters.

“My concern is that if the data entry that is taking some people’s signatures and putting them into the computer, but putting them in wrong, maybe that’s happening in other places too,” said Hart.

One of the names that was not allowed was Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey’s 18-year-old son. His signature was not counted even though he is registered to vote.

"When I see my son's name has been thrown off, I think that's not the way it's supposed to work," said Morrissey.

The Secretary of State’s office told 9Wants to Know it checked every signature in support of Initiative 82.

“After performing a line-by-line analysis of the initiative, the proponents were still 7,852 valid signatures short of the required number. The Secretary of State’s office makes every effort to verify the handwritten information and the petitions. The proponents are welcome to file a challenge in District Court as provided for by state law,” said Secretary of State spokesman Richard Coolidge.

Initiative 82 would have counteracted what some people say Amendment 46 will do if voters approve it. Amendment 46 would eliminate discrimination and preferential treatment by governments based on race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in public employment, education or contracting.

Amendment 46 critics say the amendment doesn’t define “preferential treatment” and if passed, could remove after-school programs targeting a specific gender.

Initiative 82 would have defined "preferential treatment" as using quotas or point systems in hiring.