Apparently SoS Office Doesn't Read Her Own Staff Reports About Scanner Problems

["Robert Mcgrath" <mcgrath_mcnally@xxxxxxx>]

GarCo election investigation uncovers manymiscalculations

Tuesday, April 27, 2004


By MIKE McKIBBIN

The Daily Sentinel

PARACHUTE ? Ballots in last November?s Garfield County general election were 
incorrectly counted, a Colorado Secretary of State audit found.

A School District 16 mill-levy override of $996,000 passed by a 673-656 
count, while a race for a Glenwood Springs City Council seat ended in a 
200-200 tie, the audit report said. The new results are not legally binding.

Initial results for the school district question showed it lost by a 625-631 
count, while Rick Davis lost his re-election bid in Ward 1 to Larry Beckwith 
by a 192-189 count.

The lengthy report was released Monday. The audit was conducted by Drew 
Durham, the director of the federal Help America Vote Act program for 
Colorado. The program was created after the 2000 presidential voting fiasco 
in Florida.

County Clerk and Recorder Mildred Alsdorf admitted problems occurred in the 
vote-counting process.

?We had some human errors,? she said. ?I?ll keep better hands-on. This is 
something that really bothers me.?

The district and Davis each asked for an investigation after some 
irregularities surfaced.

The district paid for a recount of the mill-levy question that reduced the 
margin of defeat from eight to four votes and included the discovery of 23 
uncounted ballots.

Among the problems cited in the report:

Instructions were sent out with the mail-in ballots that told voters to mark 
their ballots with pens. The ballots themselves said to use pencils.

The county?s ballot-counting machine can read lead from pencils and some ink 
if enough lead is included, Alsdorf said. Some ballots filled out with ink 
were turned over to restitution judges. They covered the ink marks with lead 
so the ballots could be counted, she said.

The optical vote-counting machine stopped 1,700 times on election night 
because of paper jams and programming mistakes.

Inadequate training and supervision of election staff.

Failure to follow procedures to clear election judges.

Incorrect segregation of ballots before they were counted.

Problems with new, first-time-voter-registration procedures.

At least one elector in Davis? city council ward was given an incorrect 
ballot.

School District 16 officials plan to pursue ?all avenues available to us? to 
?ensure voter intent is implemented.?

Superintendent Steve McKee said the district, with schools in Parachute and 
Battlement Mesa, would seek remedies through the court system and Colorado 
Legislature.

?We could end up taking one or both steps,? he said. ?Had this result come 
about in December, we could have set our mill levy to the correct amount. 
Now the mill levy is already set, so we may lose one year?s funding.?

The Help America Vote Act program does not include any penalties, said 
Secretary of State spokeswoman Lisa Doran. The audit report found no intent 
by Alsdorf or any of her staff to intentionally alter either outcome.

?We?re concerned to see that there were these issues, and we hope all the 
clerks learn from Garfield County?s experience,? Doran said.

She was not aware of any previous election outcome that was reversed in 
Colorado in recent years.

Alsdorf said the audit report and school-district-question reversal may hurt 
the public?s confidence in her ability to properly conduct elections.

?I?ve been doing this since I was elected in 1978, and we?ve never had a 
problem like this,? she said.

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