More than 370 voters in a southwest Colorado county never received ballots in the mail for the June 25 primary election — which included a close state House Republican primary race with a three-vote margin that’s now headed for a recount.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Monday ordered the recount, which was required because of the tightness of candidate Larry Don Suckla’s lead over J. Mark Roeber in House District 58’s primary.
But before the election, the lost ballots, 376 in all, accounted for nearly a quarter of sparsely populated Dolores County’s active voter list, according to Griswold’s office. The ballots apparently were lost in the mail between when they were loaded on a U.S. Postal Service truck at the printing vendor in Seattle and their scheduled delivery to a mail facility in Albuquerque.
More than 100 voters in the county requested replacement ballots by Election Day, a 10-fold increase over the normal number of such requests.
It was a sharp enough increase that it appeared to catch the attention of Dolores County Clerk and Recorder Lana Hancock. She contacted the Postal Service on June 13 and the vendor, K&H Print Solutions, on June 17, according to the state office. The vendor reported then that its records showed 23% of the ballots were never received by voters.
It’s not clear what the clerk did in response, according to a letter from the head of the secretary of state’s Elections Division.
“The K&H report was an undeniable red flag,” Elections Division Director Judd Choate wrote in a July 3 letter to Hancock. “Despite this, at no point did you inform the Colorado Department of State, the Elections Division, nor the SCORE customer service team that your election had encountered a problem. Nor does it appear you took action to fix the issue.”
If the clerk contacted the state either around June 13 or June 17, there would have been time to send every affected voter a replacement ballot, according to the letter. Instead, the Elections Division wasn’t told of the issue until July 1 — nearly a week after the election, Choate wrote.
Hancock’s office acknowledged The Denver Post’s request for comment Monday but said the clerk would respond when more information was available.
The Secretary of State’s Office is considering increased supervision of Hancock’s office for the November general election, Choate wrote. In a separate letter to the Postal Service, Choate requested that the federal agency “prioritize a formal investigation” into the missing ballots with regular updates to the state, and that it ensure similar errors do not happen in future elections.
The vendor appears to be clear of any mismanagement and offered to show the state department pictures and video of each ballot being printed and loaded into the Postal Service truck.
Unofficial results in the House District 58 GOP primary showed Suckla ahead, with 6,488 votes to Roeber’s 6,485 votes. Colorado law requires a recount if the vote differential is within a half of a percentage point of the winner’s total.
The district covers all or part of eight counties in southwest Colorado, including the entirety of Dolores County. It contains Montrose and Gunnison and stretches to the Utah border.
The counties must finish their recount by July 26.
“The unofficial results of the Republican primary race for House District 58 … show that every vote matters,” Griswold said in a news release announcing the recount.
Suckla said the scenario was “very nerve-racking, for sure,” but he called Roeber a friend and said he’d call to congratulate him if the recount flipped the results.
Suckla said he didn’t think the lost ballots issue was about favoring one candidate over another, but it was frustrating nonetheless. People are creatures of habit and expect ballots in the mail, he said. Add in that the mishap happened during hay-baling season, when farmers in the rural county may be working long hours and not watching the election calendar, and it could lead to would-be voters missing the boat.
“There’s frustration when there’s four votes,” Suckla said, referring to an unofficial tally in which he said another vote in his favor was found during the canvass. “It’s a different deal when it’s hundreds.”
An attempt to reach Roeber Monday was not successful.
The winner will face Democrat Kathleen Curry in November. The district historically trends Republican, with current Rep. Marc Catlin, a Montrose Republican, handily winning his last three elections there. Catlin is leaving the position to run for the state Senate.
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