Mr. Murphy, you were so very fortunate to have legal help on a pro bono basis. Most CORA cases cost $25-50K if you can keep them simple. They are beyond the reach of almost all citizens. The law needs to change so that more citizens are able to obtain the information that they want from the government.
I hope that you will appeal the court's ruling on the formulas and data. What you are seeking is obviously not software. Good luck.
Your demands for "transparency" are misplaced. Citizens have rights to privacy. Governments must be transparent. Any citizen willing to fight the good fight in the courtroom is plenty transparent. He puts his name on his posts here as well. It is of little importance if someone had helped with legal fees to achieve greater government transparency. Little real transparency would be forced from government if there were not private self-serving interest who invest in trying to bring sunshine into government operations.
Sounds to me as if there is much more they should have turned over. They have withheld data and formulas---(both are public records)-- NOT "software" which of course they are allowed to withhold. I hope that you are going to appeal the decision.
The clerk's statements present a high-risk position here. A close and analytical study of the statute will reveal the legislative intent not to allow someone else to deliver your ballot. Nowhere does it allow someone else to deliver your ballot. However, in the state, federal, county, school board, and city ABSENTEE ballots, there are clear provisions (with risk mitigation) to allow 3rd party delivery. But NOT for this type of election.
Voters and law enforcement officials, ---the clerk and the ballot harvesters have it wrong. It is illegal for anyone but the voter and the USPS to deliver the voter's ballot in this type of LOCAL election. In February the law changed to degrade the entire local election code for mandatory mail ballots. They took away all the security risk mitigation for mail ballots in local elections. Therefore without security mitigation, the law does not allow anyone but the voter to deliver the ballot. This is in HB14-1164. I am guessing that whichever side wins, the result will be challenged in court because too many illegal votes have been cast.
In the state primary election, voters CAN have someone else deliver their ballot, although it is a risky idea.
I don't think that Broomfield voters generally recognize that some City officials purposely rejected some legal ballots of Broomfield voters who had merely moved within Broomfield during the weeks before the election. We asked them not to do this irreparable harm, but they flatly refused. Now those votes cannot be retrieved and can never be counted. Other voters who were not qualified to vote because they were new to Broomfield had their ballots counted for Broomfield races. No one will ever be able to short out who won or lost.
If only you were right. That is the way it should be. However, the clerk will not allow the Canvass Board to see any of those provisional ballot applications or data. It is all hidden behind closed doors and the work is done by hand-picked people without bi-partisan or multi-partisan oversight. Ballots counted in the dark.
That is what part of the debate is about. There was no independent check on these rejections or acceptances and the canvass board feels they should not sign off without checking into some of the "insider" reports they got on how lousy the sysem was.
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Opus