By Ben DeGrow | Special to Colorado Watchdog

Ben DeGrow

Clean elections won a key victory late last week when Obama administration officials relented to grant Florida Gov. Rick Scott access to a key database that will allow his state to remove noncitizens from the voter rolls effectively. While RedState’s Erick Erickson gives Scott a big congratulatory slap on the back, Florida is not the only swing state where officials are working to improve voter integrity.

The Colorado Observer’s Valerie Richardson reports that Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler has uncovered more noncitizens on the state’s voter rolls, bringing the total to more than 5,000 this year alone. While common sense would dictate that numbers like those could make a difference in a tight election (and how many more are yet to be discovered?), certain detractors cite the latest number of additions to suggest Gessler’s effort is not worthwhile:

“Even though he’s found 85 people and about half of them actually voted, I just feel like those folks may already have become citizens,” said (executive director of the Colorado chapter of Mi Familia Vota Grace) Ramirez. “They may be legal voters. You only have to be a legal resident for five years before becoming a citizen. A lot can happen in that time, and I feel that to use all these government resources for this is a waste of money.”

Methinks she doth protest too much. But protests aside, shouldn’t there be a simple way to find out which illegal voters, who have since become citizens, are now legal voters? The article points out that Gessler has requested that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security cross-reference the names to do just that.

For the sake of ensuring voter integrity, here’s hoping Gessler has as much success as Florida’s governor in obtaining the information necessary to make the assessment by Aug. 8. That crucial federal deadline for voter registration is only three weeks away. Are the national political implications of Colorado’s nine electoral votes too tempting for the administration to make the right call? Let’s hope not.

In the meantime, it’s good to know two key state officials named “Scott” are doing their utmost to help provide for the cleanest elections possible.