Secretary of State Jena Griswold has adopted temporary rules that rescind recent changes to the circulation of petitions and that also push back the deadline for charitable solicitation filings due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In May, Gov. Jared Polis issued an order calling for the mail and email gathering of petition signatures for candidates and ballot initiatives to avoid the health implications of in-person circulation. The Colorado Supreme Court subsequently ruled that directive unconstitutional. The new protocols from Griswold are intended to provide certainty to proponents of ballot initiatives, petition circulators, and unaffiliated or independent candidates.

The rules eliminate the portions of previous guidance pertaining to mail and email circulation, including striking the process by which a person must witness the petition signing remotely. Griswold’s office will only accept petition signatures collected in person if the window to circulate had not elapsed by the time of Polis’ order.

Griswold also pushed back from July 15 to August 15 the deadline for nonprofit organizations that solicit donations to report on their fundraising activity. Again citing the pandemic, the announcement of the rule change notes that “it will be difficult for registrants and other stakeholders (firms and accountants who prepare reports on registrants’ behalf) to comply with the [Colorado Charitable Solicitations Act] and related filing deadline rules in a timely way, which would jeopardize their ability to raise funds in Colorado.”

By making fundraising publicly available, the law’s purpose is to limit fraudulent charity solicitations.