A handful of Colorado’s top Democrats formed a masked front line at the Denver Elections Division on Monday morning to defend the state’s mail-in ballot system. 

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, who appeared at a press conference with U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, Gov. Jared Polis, Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul Lopez, acknowledged that he is in conversations with other AGs across the country about a possible lawsuit to protect the right to vote, with specific importance over preserving the postal service’s ability to handle elections.

“We’re under the clock,” Weiser told Colorado Politics.  “We’ve got to move quickly and I’m going to make sure that anything we do is going to be sound.”

Weiser says that there is a constitutional obligation to manage the upcoming 2020 elections, “The concern as to whether or not the federal undermining of the post office interferes with that right.”

These legal discussions are happening as President Donald Trump threatens to undercut funding to the United States Postal Service. Trump has maintained a public obsession with the USPS, which he has called “a joke,” tweeting Monday minutes after the press conference, “The U.S. Post Office (System) has been failing for many decades. We simply want to MAKE THE POST OFFICE GREAT AGAIN, while at the same time saving billions of dollars a year for American Taxpayers. Dems don’t have a clue! @USPostOffice911”

Colorado is one of five states in which every voter receives a mail-in ballot. Voters may submit completed ballots by mail or deposit them at designated drop-boxes and drop-off locations. But that’s not the only option. In-person voting at polling centers is also an option, but the pandemic has put a damper on whether this will be the safest choice. 

An unprecedented number of states have instituted mail-in voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic, citing the efficacy of the process in states that have used it for years. Besides Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Utah, and Washington also conduct all-mail elections. 

Calling this the “most important election of our lifetime,” Bennet noted that the chances of voter fraud using the mail-in ballot system are almost nonexistent, pointing out that in 2014, the first year Colorado started mail-in voting, Coloradans elected Sen. Cory Gardner, a Republican. 

“More registered Republicans voted by mail than did Democrats. For us this is not about R and D,” Bennet said. “I can’t tell you the number of times senators have come up to me, Republicans and Democrats, and say ‘Tell us how you do it in Colorado.’ ” 

In June, Colorado set a record for the highest-ever turnout for a non-presidential primary, with over 99% of votes cast by mail-in ballot. “Colorado is the national gold standard in elections,” said Griswold, adding, “The president is more worried about suppressing the vote than about suppressing the virus.”

Former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams, who helped refine Colorado’s mail-in ballot system, told Colorado Politics that he and Griswold have worked together to expand it and that “attacks from Washington on Colorado’s system are not appropriate.” 

Williams adds that Colorado mails its ballots three weeks before the election so even if the post office is lagging behind, voters can still get their ballot in by walking it to a drop box. “Even if the ballot shows up at the last minute you can take it to a 24/7 dropbox throughout the state. So if you’re working in the Western Slope on an oil rig, you can drop your ballot off at the drop box in that community.”