DENVER, August 29, 2012, (LifeSiteNews.com) – Colorado voters will not have another opportunity to vote on a Personhood measure this fall. Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler announced today that Personhood USA had fallen 4,000 signatures shy of the number needed to obtain ballot access.
Personhood vowed to appeal the decision, saying Gessler had inappropriately thrown out valid signatures. Spokeswoman Jennifer Mason said, “Whole petitions were discarded because of small details, like a notary error. Once those things are counted, we’ll have more than enough” signatures to put the language before state voters once again.
Earlier this month Personhood Colorado had announced it had submitted a total of 112,121, far more than the 86,105 that were required, making the announcement from the secretary of state all the more surprising.
The law allows 30 days to file a protest. The Colorado Personhood Coalition has engaged election law specialist Shayne Madsen of the Jackson Kelly law firm.
“This disqualification is by an extremely narrow number, and as we have seen thousands of valid voter signatures discarded unnecessarily, we will be filing a challenge to ensure that every Colorado voter’s voice is heard, and that every signature counts,” said Gualberto Garcia Jones, J.D., legal analyst for Personhood USA.
Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains promptly issued a press release celebrating the defeat. “Let today be a signal to Personhood supporters who return to Colorado year after year with anti-women, anti-family, anti-patient privacy proposals,” said spokeswoman Monica McCafferty. “Coloradans have said ‘no’ to intrusion into our personal, private medical decisions, and we mean it.”
Personhood measures, which would extend 14th Amendment protections to all unborn children, were defeated at the polls in Colorado in 2008 and 2010.
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