Ballots cast by voters who have been canceled from the state's voter rolls since mid-May will get extra oversight to make sure their votes are counted, under an agreement reached late Wednesday in U.S. District Court.

Common Cause of Colorado, Mi Familia Vota Education Fund and the Service Employees International Union sued Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, alleging that his office had violated the National Voter Registration Act by illegally purging about 31,000 eligible voters from the rolls 90 days before the election.

The state insists the actual number is smaller.

The plaintiffs had asked Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr. for a preliminary injunction that by Tuesday would reinstate voters who had been

removed from the rolls. They also asked Kane to order the state to stop removing people until after the election.

Just before Kane was set to rule on the matter, the plaintiffs and the sec retary of state's office reached an agreement.

The morning after the election, the state will generate a list of voters who were removed from the rolls since May 14 and send it to county clerks and the groups' attorneys for review.

The state then will order that the voters on the list who voted by provisional ballot will be verified before other provisional ballots that have been cast.

"Voters on the list shall be presumed to be eligible and their ballots will be counted," the agreement says. "Only upon a showing by clear and convincing evidence that a voter is not eligible shall a provisional ballot be rejected by the county."

The secretary of state also must conduct an independent review of each ballot rejected at the county level and order the clerk to count the ballot of any voter whose ballot was incorrectly rejected no later than two weeks before the certification of the statewide election results.

During a hearing Wednesday, election officials testified that reinstating voters removed from the database would be a logistical nightmare, could crash the computer system and might jeopardize the election. About 1 million people have already voted.

Before the two sides reached an agreement, Kane indicated that he was weighing the impact of making a decision.

"I think there are places where the state went out of bounds on removal of these names," he said, "but at the same time, what I am concerned with primarily is trying to balance the equities so that I am not creating more harm."

Some voters in the dark

Attorneys for the groups said that some voters had no idea that they had been purged and therefore would not know that their ballots would not count or that they might have to fill out a provisional ballot — which takes longer to do and is subject to verification.

During the hearing, Colorado Springs resident Linda Townsend Johnson and her husband, James Edward Johnson, testified that they registered to vote at a mall in May after moving to Colorado Springs from Mississippi.

They learned that they were no longer registered when they were contacted by an attorney for the plaintiffs to find out if they knew why they were removed from the rolls.

Despite receiving voter registration cards and mail-in ballots, they were purged from the rolls because two people with their names signed voter registration forms in September with a different address.

The Johnsons testified that the signatures on the September registrations did not belong to them and they had not moved.

Procedure, error

But the county clerk's office, by procedure, removed their names from the voting rolls after mail sent to the address that did not belong to them was returned as undeliverable. The clerks then erroneously told the Johnsons that their ballots would not count when the couple went to inquire about their status.

The state plans to launch a voter-fraud investigation into how the Johnsons' names got registered in September. Attorneys for the advocacy groups say the incident is more likely related to systematic computer error.

Johnson said that although her voting records have since been fixed, she is concerned for others who may not have their votes counted.

"I am African-American and a woman, and I do not take for granted that people suffered and did things for me to have that right," she said about voting.

"What would have happened if I did not get a call?"

Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com

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