Face The State Staff Report
Face The State has discovered that some Colorado voters have received ballots for two different precincts, a problem that may lead some to accidentally vote in the wrong state legislative or city council races. While state law provides corrective measures, individuals may unintentionally disenfranchise themselves in lower level races.
Known to be at risk are Denver voters who requested to vote by mail earlier in the year but then later submitted a change in address information to county election officials after Sept. 22. According to Alton Dillard, communications director for the Denver County Clerk and Recorder, the first voter list for mail-in ballots was cut on Sept. 22, so any voter who changed his or her address after that day was issued a replacement ballot. While many of the first round of ballots were returned to the county clerk as “non-deliverable,” some of them ended up in the hands of the elector.
“This is a very common problem,” said Jenny Flanagan, executive director of Common Cause, a liberal voter-rights group. “Voters move right before the election or in between the registration deadline and the election.”
The Denver County Election Division was unable to provide exact numbers on how many people changed their address after Sept. 22. Figures from Magellan Data and Mapping Strategies, however, show that at least 2,000 registered voters have changed their address in Denver County since September. In addition, Magellan notes that the number may be higher because the referenced figure only includes individuals who filled out a federal mail-in change of address card when they moved.
The new State of Colorado Registration and Election system, known as SCORE, can only accept one ballot per person. But if someone issued two ballots ends up casting the wrong one, there is no way for SCORE to remedy that. County customer service representatives and officials agree the second ballot should be thrown away, even if it is the one the voter is legally entitled to cast.
“State law says we have to count the first ballot we receive,” said Josh Liss, deputy of elections in Jefferson County.
According to Liss, voters who end up casting the wrong ballot after being issued two will still see their vote for any district in which they are eligible to vote count. The SCORE system is designed to detect any ineligibility and not tally those votes. If a voter moves but casts a ballot for his or her old state House and Senate district, such votes will not be counted. Under such a scenario, that voter will also be deprived of the right to vote for the state House and Senate candidate in the new district, but will still maintain the right to vote for all Federal and statewide races.
Under the SCORE system, every voter is given a unique voter identification number, so if both ballots are cast the system will flag that person as having tried to vote twice.
“It’s an imperfect system,” Flanagan said.