Boulder Direct Democracy Online goes live on Monday, though some challenges persist, particularly for those with unlisted phone numbers on their voter registration.
Otherwise, the city has corrected most of the problems that occurred when it launched on the preview of its new online petitioning system on Jan. 22. This includes a common problem in which people did not receive a confirmation code via phone call or text message and therefore could not go through the two-factor authentication process and another where people received an error message despite doing everything properly.
City Attorney Tom Carr told Boulder City Council on Tuesday that the city did not realize unlisted numbers were an issue until the preview of the city’s new system was released for public testing. Carr said he’s still not certain how people designate their number as unlisted since there is no option for doing so on the state voter registration form.
“This is problematic, and I’m very sorry for it. But it’s something that we didn’t anticipate and didn’t have any idea existed before we went to the preview system, which is one of the reasons why it’s been incredibly helpful to do this (preview),” he said.
If a person has an unlisted number, the county and city have created a more direct system for addressing the problem. Previously, it required making the change in person at the county clerk’s office. Now, there is a form that people can print out, fill out, scan and email in.
Ultimately, Carr hopes there will be an electronic fix.
“Our goal in all of this is to reduce the barriers not create additional ones,” he said.
There wasn’t much feedback from City Council on Tuesday, aside from Mayor Sam Weaver and Councilmembers Aaron Brockett and Rachel Friend.
Weaver noted that while some of the complications could be dealt with via a city or county policy change, others may require legislative changes. Either way, he isn’t surprised that there have been some problems with Boulder Direct Democracy Online.
“This is a new system, first in the nation of its kind to be able to do this kind of work,” Weaver said. “So (it’s) not unexpected to me that there’s going to be these kind of challenges that we need to work through.”
Friend has yet to use the system successfully, presumably due to an unlisted number. She said the experience made her realize the system isn’t all that user friendly.
Though people with unlisted numbers can fill out the form, it is a tedious process that requires a petition signer to go back in multiple times. Further, since the county does not track unlisted numbers and has no way to run a report on the problem, there is no way to proactively let would-be petition signers know that their number is unlisted.
“It’s going to require people to engage more than I think the average petition signer wants to do,” Friend said.
But Carr argues that, while the online system may be more challenging to use, it prevents a scenario where a campaign is short signatures because dozens are invalid. This is something that happened frequently for campaigns using the paper petitioning system, and the city recommended obtaining a certain percentage more than required.
The online petitioning system verifies on the front end so campaigns can be more certain that their count is accurate. This also saves the time it takes for “an extensive certifying process” once signatures are submitted, Carr said.
“It’s not that easy to get through the endorsement process,” he said. “But once you do, you’re done, and the signatures are valid.”
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Despite kinks, Boulder Direct Democracy Online set to go live Monday - Boulder Daily Camera
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