Report On The April 1, 2003, Mail In Election, Colorado Springs, Colorado by Charles E. Corry, Ph.D.


 

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Index

Problem summary

Attachments

Background

City of Colorado Springs mail in election April 1, 2003

Cost savings and who got ballots

Measuring voter turnout

Poll watchers

Ballot tracking

Not a secret ballot

Computer errors

Election records

Election fraud or incompetence?

Arithmetic errors abound

What has been done as of July 4, 2003 and what should be done?

What has been done

What should be done


 

Problem summary

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An election run by city officials who can't even add is a mockery of liberty.

• Claims by the Colorado Springs City Clerk that mail in elections would increase voter turnout were based on bogus arithmetic and phony statistics.

• According to the El Paso County Clerk's office 138,473 electors voted in the November 2002 election and were therefore counted as "active" by the standard used in this election. The City of Colorado Springs Canvass Board memorandum gives a value of 141,614 active voters. Only "active" voters were mailed ballots. It is unknown why at least 3,141 additional ballots were mailed to apparently "inactive" voters, or who those individuals are. More than three thousand ballots mailed to selected voters might easily sway any election.

• According to the El Paso County Clerk's office there were 222,691 registered voters in the City of Colorado Springs at the time of the election but the Canvass Board memorandum indicates 141,614 active registered electors were mailed ballots. Therefore, 81,077 citizens, or more than one-third of the registered voters, were effectively disenfranchised, and this is permitted by current state law.

• According to the Canvass Board Memorandum there were a total of 142,194 ballots issued. However, the Election Verification Totals indicates there were 148,609 ballots issued (88,879 processed plus 59,730 unreturned).

• According to the Election Verification Totals Report 82,463 ballots were scanned. Yet the Daily Totals show 97,620 ballots scanned, a difference of 15,157 ballots. Which number is correct?

• In proposing a mail in election to the city council the city clerk claimed that such an election would save $100,000. In the event it was shown that projected cost saving was based on not mailing some 81,000 ballots to registered voters. However, actual cost accounting for the election is not yet available. A false promise of cost saving was also made in the November 2001 mail in election in El Paso County that did not materialize due to "unanticipated expenses."

• Ballot secrecy was compromised by opening ballot envelopes and examining ballots at the same table by two election judges. All election procedures were directed by the City Clerk and election judges "interpreted" the voter's intent on an unknown number of ballots and "duplicated" those ballots out of sight of poll watchers before the remarked replacement ballot was counted.

• According to the Election Verification Totals Report no challenged ballot was counted. In a mail in election a voter has no recourse when their ballot is challenged and no way to know if their vote was counted. The problem is exacerbated because the judges knew who cast the ballot they challenged.

• At least 53,254 ballots simply disappeared, though the Election Verification Totals report states the number as 59,730. One is left guessing as to the fate of thousands of ballots.

• A pre-election press demonstration revealed a serious programming error by Diebold Election Systems, whom the city clerk contracted to run the election, that didn't count the votes on the tax issue. No known tests or checks were made for other possible computer errors.

• Even the simplest election arithmetic contains inexplicable errors, many of which are tabulated here.


 

Attachments

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The problems reported here are based on three reports by the Colorado Springs City Clerk and are available by clicking here. To follow the arguments below, and see the reported errors for yourself, you will probably want to print these three reports (four pages).

1. Election Verification Totals (EVT) report — Lists the official values for accepted, challenged, and denied ballot totals; the number of undeliverable and unreturned ballots; and the total scanned and processed ballots.

2. Canvass Board Memorandum (CBM) — The official election results for each candidate and the tax issue on two pages signed by the election canvass board, former Mayor Mary Lou Makepeace and City Clerk Kathryn Young and dated April 8, 2003.

3. Ballot Daily Totals (BDT) — A tabulation of ballots scanned, pulled, and counted for March 17 through April 2, 2003.


 

Background

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The following report was made with the help of Al Kolwicz of Citizens for Accurate Mail Ballot Election Results (CAMBER) of Boulder and Mrs. Carol Pfeffer, who heads up the CAMBER chapter in El Paso County . Mrs. Pfeffer acted as a poll watcher during the election and the attached documents and election data cited here were collected by her.

Mail in elections were devised on the assumption that they would improve voter turnout and participation in elections. They were implemented in Colorado circa 1990 for local elections at an election district's discretion when candidates for federal offices were not on the ballot. It has also been claimed that mail in elections are less expensive than precinct voting and no more subject to fraud.

The claims and assumptions of proponents for mail in elections are clearly repudiated by the Colorado Springs April 1, 2003 election.

From the beginning the premise that voter apathy was a function of having to go to a polling place and vote is simply wrong. Typically, older, active voters look forward to voting at their local precinct as a civic duty.

Voter apathy can be shown, however, to be associated with:

Lackluster candidates whose sole goal is to be elected and control public funds and citizen activities.

Elected officials who ignore ballot box results, e.g., voters turn down a tax increase to expand a jail yet within weeks the county commissioners vote to build the jail anyway and also build a new, unneeded courthouse. Or voters turn down an amendment to make mail in elections mandatory throughout the state and within a few months a city holds a mail in election such as the one in question here. Or special districts may hold stealth elections at odd times or places to ensure a small turnout where they can ensure their partisans turn out, and control the vote.

Too many elections. Rather than combining elections, such as for municipal officials, with general elections for federal and state offices, election districts hold special elections at odd times for minor offices and issues, during which the voter turnout is predictably low. Often local elections are less closely monitored than national elections, contributing to the potential for fraud.

So voter apathy and low turnout in many elections is primarily a problem created by governmental units who benefit from low turnout and a more easily manipulated electorate. As shown in Table 4 voter turnout is primarily dependent on the type of election. In general, presidential elections have a greater turnout than congressional ones, congressional elections have a larger turnout than county ballots, and municipal and special district elections have the lowest turnouts.

    Table 4: Voter turnout in El Paso County for the years 1997 through 2003.

Year

Registered

Voters

Number

Who Voted

Percent

Turnout

Type of

Election

Where

Held

Nov. 1997

280,784

54,238

19.32%

County

Precincts

Nov. 1998

298,664

144,234

48.29%

Congressional

Nov. 1999

314,804

83,404

26.49%

County

Nov. 2000

339,525

201,662

59.39%

Presidential

Nov. 2001

318,799

100,325

31.47%

County

Mail In

Nov. 2002

337,004

154,754

45.92%

Congressional

Precincts

April 2003

222,691*

81,709

36.69%

Municipal

Mail In

* Only includes registered voters in the City of Colorado Springs, which comprises roughly two thirds of the residents of El Paso County.

Secondly, no significant and consistent increase in voter participation has ever been demonstrated for mail in elections. In the November 2001 mail in election held in El Paso County a turnout of 31% of all registered voters was claimed against an average 27%. The ballot in the 2001 election was the longest in El Paso County's history, and voter interest was high, but the mail in election did not significantly increase voter participation. In the April 2003 municipal election presently at issue the voter turnout was 37% of registered voters, a recent but not historically high turnout. Again, voter interest in the city election was high because a new mayor, virtually the entire city council were being elected, and a tax issue was on the ballot as well. The controversy surrounding the use of a mail in election so soon after voters had rejected the idea in the November 2002 election, and the finding after ballots had been mailed that 81,000 registered voters were effectively disenfranchised, no doubt contributed to voter interest as well.


 

City of Colorado Springs mail in election April 1, 2003

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In November 2002 citizens of El Paso County rejected by a resounding 63% the proposed Amendment 28 put on the ballot by Bighorn Center that would have mandated all elections in Colorado be held by mail. However, based on false claims of economy 1 the city council of Colorado Springs was persuaded soon thereafter to conduct the mayoral and city council election of April 1, 2003, by a mail in election. Despite resistance by both council members and citizens, that was done. Problems with the conduct of the April 1, 2003, election by the Colorado Springs City Clerk have multiplied and few answers have been provided.


 

1. Virtually the entire cost of the April 2003 election could have been saved by combining the city election with the national election in November 2002. The voter turnout at the polls in that election was 62% (Table 4), much higher than the 37% turnout for the mail in election of April 1, 2003.


 

Cost savings and who got ballots

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It has been stated repeatedly by supporters of mail in elections that a principal benefit is that they cost less. That claim was previously made as a justification for the November 2001 mail in election conducted by El Paso County. Those savings did not materialize due to "unanticipated expenses."

Undeterred, the Colorado Springs City Clerk claimed that a mail in election would save some $100,000 in the April 1, 2003 election. To date (July 2003), however, the city clerk has not produced actual costs for the election.

It became evident during March 2003 that the method by which the city clerk reduced costs was to not send ballots to approximately 81,000 registered voters in the City of Colorado Springs. That is permitted under state law but that fact was not presented to city council during their consideration, and reconsideration, of a mail in election. If ballots had been sent to all registered voters it is a virtual certainty that city election costs would have exceeded the costs quoted by county officials to conduct the election by the traditional precinct method.

State law permits the official conducting a mail in election to not send ballots to inactive voters, in this case electors in the City of Colorado Springs who did not vote in the November 2002 general election. That in itself raised a number of questions yet unanswered.

A check with the county clerk's office gave 222,691 registered voters in Colorado Springs as of March 3, 2003, the registration cutoff date. Of these 84,218 did not vote in the November 2002 election and were thus considered "inactive" for purposes of the April city election. That left 138,473 "active" voters in Colorado Springs who did vote in the general election. Having worked in the past with the El Paso County Clerk's election officials I have faith in their honesty and integrity.

Of these values, only the number of registered voters given by the county clerk, 222,691, is approximately equal to the numbers provided by the city clerk, who stated there were 222,651 registered voters. During the course of the election ultimately either 142,194 (CBM) or 148,609 ( EVT 88,879, total processed ballots + 59,730 unreturned) ballots were issued. As of March 24 th we were told by the city clerk that there were 141,484 active voters, who were mailed ballots (although the CBM states 141,614), and 81,167 inactive voters, who were not. Why 3,141 (141,614 CBM city clerk - 138,473 county clerk) voters were considered "active" by the city clerk but not the county clerk, who these voters are, and why they were mailed ballots when others were not remains undetermined.

It seems a clear advantage in a mail in election to have ballots mailed to selected voters and not others, e.g., such ballots may have only gone to Republicans, or only to voters in now-Mayor Rivera's strongholds. Examples of just such activities in a mail in election have previously been found in Castle Rock, Colorado.

When it was published that over 81,000 voters were not sent ballots, considerable citizen outrage was generated. The publicity did, however, apparently help, or motivate more than 7,000 citizens to pick up ballots from the city clerk if the Election Verification Totals tabulation is correct, or less than 580 if the Canvass Board Memorandum is correct.

Measuring voter turnout

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Traditionally voter turnout is measured as the ratio of number of ballots cast divided by the number of registered voters in the election. In attempting to justify motor voter registration, mail in elections, and other governmental "fixes" for low voter turnout in elections, there have been some who have said that the number of ballots cast should be divided by the number of eligible voters, a more vague demographic but a much larger number, thus a lower apparent turnout. By the traditional method, using the values from the Canvass Board, the voter turnout in the April 1, 2003 city election was 37% (81,709 ballots accepted and counted divided by 222,691, or by 222,651, registered voters), not a particularly high percentage (Table 4).

As a result, additional tricks were used to justify the choice of a mail in election by the city clerk. In several press statements voter turnout was measured by dividing the number of ballots returned by the number of ballots issued. As initially only 141,484 ballots were mailed and some 82,479 were returned (EVT), one was led to believe that voter "turnout" was ~58%. So if one-third of eligible voters are disenfranchised by not being sent a ballot, and a clerk only counts those who voted in the last election, the claim can be made that mail in elections increase voter turnout.

Of course in the next election only 81,709 voters would be considered "active," of whom most could be expected to vote. So apparent "voter turnout" might increase even further using this calculus. These deceptive numbers, yet increasingly disenfranchised electorate, would be used again as further propaganda as to why mail in elections are so "successful."

When the city clerk's bogus arithmetic was publicly debunked another method was attempted to claim a "record" turnout for the mail in election. In an article in the April 10-16, 2003, issue of the Independent, well-paid lobbyist Dan Njegomir of the Bighorn Center, who for years have been trying to foist mail in elections on Colorado, claimed that the "...82,000 ballots that arrived by Election Day represented the largest number of votes ever cast in a municipal election in the Springs as well as the highest percentage of registered voters to weigh in on a city race since 1991." Note that Njegomir ignores the incredible population increase in the area over the past decade. I only have data for El Paso County back to 1997, but there were only 280,784 registered voters in the county that year, compared with 337,004 registered in November 2002 (Table 4). With that kind of increase in the number of registered voters one naturally expects the total number of voters in any election to increase irrespective of the use of a mail in election.

Correlation does not imply causation, a fundamental theorem of statistics demonstrated once again. Note that Njegomir admits that only a decade ago voters had turned out to the polls in a higher percentage than they did in the April 2003 election. As mail in elections were initiated in Colorado in 1990, if one ignores the fact that correlation does not imply causation as Njegomir does, it would be simple to claim that mail in elections are the cause of poor voter turnout since 1991.

Clearly, all claims that mail in elections increase voter turnout have been based on bogus arithmetic or phony statistics. Conversely, current state law, which the city clerk obeyed, effectively disenfranchised more than one-third of the registered voters in Colorado Springs during this election. And all potential, and yet unsubstantiated, cost savings of the mail in election were the result of not mailing some 81,000 ballots to eligible voters.

Poll watchers

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Fraud and ballot box stuffing have been a consistent feature of American elections since our founding. One method of controlling election fraud has been to allow each candidate and party to nominate poll watchers who are allowed to observe and record all actions at precincts and election headquarters, and who are given free access to election records after the election. That precept is apparently foreign to the Colorado Springs City Clerk.

Poll watchers were restricted to a nine square foot area, marked out by red tape on the floor, in a doorway to the ballot processing room where ballots were opened, sent to duplication, or presented for machine tabulation. Ballot "duplication," described below, was not visible at all to the poll watchers from this area. Passage into or out of the room required the poll watchers to move out of the other person's way.

At the entrance to the room where voter signatures were allegedly verified at the city offices poll watchers were also restricted to a nine square foot area again marked out by red tape on the floor. Yellow police tape was used to block entry into the clerk's business offices next to the verification room. In stark contrast, at the county offices poll watchers have been given full access to the signature verification and all other election processes.

Poll watchers were generally not allowed to ask questions of the election judges. Two employees were to take questions and then obtain answers from the city clerk. However, the designated city employees were not readily available. There were no city employees at the signature verification area located in the county offices.

Poll watchers were also prohibited from verifying computer operations. One result is that many questions go unanswered and the one election programming error found was detected by the merest accident.

To ensure that each eligible citizen has one, and only one vote it is essential to verify that a ballot is cast only by the eligible voter. In Colorado mail-in elections the ballot is returned in an envelope which is signed together with the voter's birth date on the outside of the envelope, a feature which has resulted in considerable voter opposition in itself in this age of privacy theft. More critical is the fact that there is no known means of verifying that the envelope was indeed personally signed by the eligible voter. The El Paso County Clerk has improvised a method with absentee ballots using Votec software that was used in the city election as well, but there is no certified, automated way of verifying a voter's signature, and a great many methods of forging signatures are known. Thus, this is an area that should be subject to the closest inspection, but one poll watcher was denied any opportunity to see how the city clerk was attempting to verify voter signatures. Various problems with signature identification have been reported but without a close inspection of the method(s) used it is impossible to have any confidence in their procedures. Therefore, the means and accuracy of signature verification used to identify voters must be regarded as unknown in this election.

Ballot tracking

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A fundamental requirement for stuffing a ballot box is to have a ballot. As a consequence election officials have long had established practices for tracking every ballot from the time it was printed until a specified period, usually at least twenty-two months, after an election. 2

A mail in election makes ballot tracking impossible and from the Election Verification Totals report we learn that 59,730 ballots were mailed that were not returned. So tens of thousands of ballots simply disappeared.

But there remains the problem that the election Canvass Board states on their memorandum of April 8 th that a total of 142, 194 ballots were issued. Clearly, the number of Total Processed Ballots (88,879), plus the Unreturned Ballots (59,730) on the EVT (total 148,609) should add up to the Total Ballots Issued (142,194) on the Canvass Board Memorandum, but they do not.

Since it is claimed on the EVT that 6,416 ballots were returned by the US Post Office as undeliverable (at a cost of $0.57 each), and 82,479 3 ballots were counted (81,709), challenged (668), or denied (102), then perhaps only 53,299 ballots disappeared (142,194 - 82,479 - 6,416 = 53,299)? Therefore, should the 59,730 value give on the EVT for Unreturned Ballots include the 6,000+ ballots that the post office did return?

It is also reasonable to question whether these 59,730, or 53,000-odd unreturned ballots were discarded by the voter or whoever received them? Did the voter never receive them, and if so why? Were any of these ballots voted and subsequently lost in the mail? Were any ballots intentionally intercepted as has been documented elsewhere? If they were intentionally intercepted, where and when: (a) before they were placed in the mail, (b) during their time in custody of the US Post Office, (c) after they were delivered to the City but before they were entered into the pollbook? I am deeply concerned about what evidence is available to prove what happened to these missing ballots?

In the end one is left guessing as to the fate of thousands of ballots! Are we supposed to believe that no election fraud is possible with such sloppy bookkeeping?

Further, no information is presently available on the total number of ballots printed, how many were not issued, how many replacement ballots were issued (though it is noted on the CBM that some were), or how many ballots were "duplicated" by election judges who were instructed to "interpret" the voter's intent.


 

2. The city clerk was obviously remiss in keeping track of ballots in this election as fourteen ballots that apparently had not been counted, or possibly they were, were found in a tray a couple of weeks after the election and after the election had been verified. However, the clerk delayed reporting these ballots for another couple of weeks to the city council and press.

3. The number of Total Scanned Ballots given as 82,463 on the EVT is obviously in error and probably should be 82,479, a difference of 16 ballots. However, there are so many other arithmetic errors that one has no idea which numbers are valid.


 

Not a secret ballot

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One poll watcher observed election judges opening outer envelopes with the voter identification on them, the inner envelope, and extracting and examining the ballot all in one location. The city clerk instructed election judges to look, while information identifying the voter was available, for any writing or markings on the ballots before submitting them to be counted.

Citizens had been instructed in the newspaper and in calls to the clerk's office that mis-marked ballots should be remarked, and that the voter could write their intention on the ballot. The city clerk instructed the election judges to pull and send these ballots for duplication so the tabulation of ballots would not be delayed by the machines rejecting ballots. Improperly marked ballots were then taken to another area of the processing room for "duplication" before tabulating the vote, a process the poll watchers could not observe. What criteria election judges used in "interpreting" voter intent to "duplicate" their ballot is unknown.

Computer errors

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During a press demonstration prior to the election it was found that the Diebold representative had omitted the tax question from the Accu-Vote tabulator instructions so that votes on that question were not counted. The city clerk's only comment was that it will be fixed, though how she might have recognized or corrected any other programming errors is an open question? One thing is certain: Poll watchers had no means, except by mere accident, of detecting computer errors, and that is another grave consequence of mail in elections.

The programming error by the Diebold representative also raises the question of just what did that company do during the election? Reportedly they were to be paid $500,000 for running the election but El Paso County equipment was used for signature verification and provided the voter database. A poll watcher only observed one Diebold representative for most of the election cycle and one other for one half-day. Typically the clerk's office generates the ballot using the GEMS software in the Diebold Accu-Vote system. Where did the taxpayer's money go and for what?

Election records unavailable

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Citizen verification of election results demands that election records be made publicly available and it is impossible for poll watchers to complete their monitoring without such records. However, Colorado Springs is currently quoting a price of $2,226.91 for an electronic copy of the pollbook on a CD-ROM ($0.01 per elector), which could be copied from the city's computer at virtually no cost. For a copy of the voter registration computer file the county wants $353. Such costs are beyond the reach of most citizen groups and serve to discourage and deny citizen verification of election results.

Election fraud or incompetence?

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Even the simplest arithmetic presented on election documents contains inexplicable errors. For example, on a memorandum from the Canvass Board to city council from Mayor Makepeace and City Clerk Kathryn Young, dated April 8, 2003, it is clearly stated that 142,194 ballots were issued. Yet on the Election Verification Totals report it is clear that either 148,609 (88,879 total processed ballots + 59,730 unreturned ballots) or 148,625 (total processed ballots actually equals 82,479 from values given) ballots had to have been issued.

There is a difference of 16 ballots in the figures on the Election Verification Totals report that poses another unsettling question. On the report there are 81,709 accepted ballots, 668 challenged ballots (which were not counted), and 102 denied ballots, for a total of 82,479. Yet the total scanned ballots are given as 82,463. Therefore, 16 more ballots were either counted, challenged, or denied, than were scanned according to this report. And from the EVT report it is clear that none of the challenged ballots were counted. Surely at least some ballots were challenged by election judges and then subsequently counted? For example, 102 ballots were challenged for signature verification and some of those must have passed on more detailed examination? Another 34 ballots were challenged for "Miscellaneous" reasons. Apparently none of the ballots subjected to that apparently capricious challenge were ever counted and election judges were able to see who cast the ballot.

In a mail in election a citizen has no recourse when his ballot is challenged and all challenged ballots were automatically denied in this election.

Arithmetic errors abound

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On the Ballot Daily Totals sheet, a total of 97,620 is given for scanned ballots though we are told on the EVT report that only 82,463 total ballots were scanned.

On the BDT report apparently 15,911 ballots failed (97,620 - 81,709), or were "pulled" during scanning, whatever process that was because the poll watchers were not allowed to witness this, and no audit trail is available. Yet again we find another arithmetic error because the Pull Total is given as 15,929, a difference of 18 ballots. In addition (no pun intended) there are at least three errors in the Daily portion of this report: (1) On March 24 th there was one less ballot counted than available. (2) On March 25 th there were 18 more ballots counted than available. (3) On March 26 th there was one more ballot counted than available. The first and third errors were compensating but are reflective of the widespread inaccuracy in the election results.

And shouldn't the 81,709 Count Totals on the Ballot Daily Totals sheet actually be the 82,479 figure (stated in error as 82,463) that is derived from the Election Verification Totals report of accepted, challenged, and denied ballots? One assumes the challenged and denied ballots were scanned as well and should be included in the count.

The press has made much of 14 ballots left in a tray and not found for two weeks after the election. But one hears nothing of the 15,911 ballots that were scanned, then pulled, and then what happened? Or should we only be trying to account for 15,141 ballots (97,620 scanned - 82,479 accepted, challenged, or denied)?

Given the pervasive arithmetic errors, on what number are we to hang our hat? Virtually nothing in the available reports correlates with the other reports, or even adds up correctly on the same report.

Supposedly 81,709 ballots were counted at the end of the election but how does a voter know if their vote was counted? And, if counted, counted correctly? Or given the unfamiliarity of the election officials with the computer tabulating equipment, perhaps some ballots were counted twice, or not at all?

Or, given the observed computer error in the press demonstration, how do we know the ballots were counted correctly by the computer? 4 Can voters trust an election official, whose reports contain numerous simple arithmetic errors, to have detected a computer programming error?

Such errors, or possible fraud, illustrate another point. Many citizens have a deep distrust of using computers in elections, and rightfully so. A mail in election uses the same computers as a precinct election but now the citizens and poll watchers are completely and totally isolated from the computers and the vote counting process. And did the city clerk enforce certification standards and version checks on computer voting equipment run by a vendor in the obvious absence of any oversight? In such circumstances corruption, fraud, and incompetence flourish.

An independent Canvass Board is supposed to catch the errors tabulated above, which obviously did not happen. As the City Clerk and the Mayor served as the Canvass Board it is reasonable to question both the ethics and competency of these officials to serve in such a position. That question is particularly acute with regard to the Colorado Springs City Clerk.


 

4. In the November 2002 election El Paso county officials encountered problems with the automatic feeder for the Accu-Vote tabulator that resulted in a miscount of the ballots. The El Paso County Clerk then ordered the counting stopped and all tabulators reset to zero and all previously-processed ballots were recounted.


 

What has been done as of July 4, 2003 and what should be done?

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In my experience so many superficial problems are but the frosting covering many deeper issues that have yet to be uncovered. I am particularly leery as city officials have not been forthcoming with needed election data.

However, steps have been taken to try and obtain the requisite data and information.

What has been done:

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1. As CAMBER has been rebuffed in its efforts to obtain election data, on June 4, 2003, the Colorado Springs chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the mayor and city council pointing out the currently known problems with the April election and requesting needed information and answers to the known problems. No answer has yet been received.

2. On June 12, 2003, I gave a talk on the problems with the April election as tabulated above to the Pike's Peak Firearm Coalition with Mayor Rivera and Councilman Small in attendance.

What should be done:

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1. City Council should provide electronic copies of the voter registration file and pollbook so that a complete, independent check of the election results can be made.

2. A detailed audit by independent auditors, with expertise in accounting, systems, and procedures audits, of the election procedures, materials, internal reports, external reports, equipment, and all costs associated with the election should be made. The audit should include information on how well applicable statutes were complied with, how adequate were the controls and procedures, accounting, security, privacy issues, records storage and retention, and computer use, accuracy, and security.

3. CAMBER and poll watchers should be allowed to participate in the audit and be authorized to interact with the audit team.

4. Any audit must produce a formal report together with recommendations for areas needing attention.

5. City Council should commit to ensuring all weaknesses identified in the audit report be corrected so as to prevent repetition in future elections. In particular, an election Canvass Board should not be composed solely of interested officials such as the City Clerk and Mayor, as was the case in this election. Additionally, poll watchers for candidates and parties must be given full access to observe all steps of future city elections.

6. The City Council should be requested to pass an ordnance or other action prohibiting the use of mail in elections at any future date in any election.

7. Support should be given to state legislation repealing mail in elections similar to HB 03-1258 introduced in the last session.

8. Request that the ACLU be represented on the Colorado Secretary of State's Help America Vote Act (HAVA) committee. Bighorn Center has four seats on this committee.

9. Work with the County Clerk Bob Balink and his staff to sort out the apparent errors in the city election and ask his support for legislation to repeal mail in elections.

10. Request a rebuttal of Dan Njegomir's Your Turn column be printed in the Independent newspaper after the facts are known.

Charles E. Corry, Ph.D., F.G.S.A.

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Last modified 6/14/09