Boulder County Clerk and Recorder responds to Election Review Committee findings

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

27 July 2005

Contact: Patricia Demchak, Boulder County Public Information Officer, 303-441-3399

Or Josh Liss, Boulder County Elections Coordinator, 303-413-7745

Boulder County Clerk and Recorder responds to Election Review Committee findings

The Boulder County Clerk and Recorder has completed a 29-page response to the findings of the Election Review Committee, which was charged with investigating the events surrounding the county’s 2004 General Election.

Elections Coordinator Joshua B. Liss will present the response to the Boulder County Commissioners during a public hearing at 3 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 2, in the Commissioners’ Hearing Room of the Boulder County Courthouse, 1325 Pearl St. in Boulder.

The document is also available to the public on the county’s Web site at www.co.boulder.co.us.

“The office of the County Clerk and Recorder wishes to thank the Election Review Committee for its hard work and dedication,” Liss said. “We know much time was spent by the members of the ERC in the development of this report. The report makes some valid recommendations that can improve the way elections are conducted in Boulder County.”

During the 2004 General Election, Boulder County’s election results were not finalized and released until nearly 72 hours after the polls closed. In the wake of this delay, the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder and the County Commissioners jointly named an Elections Review Committee and charged its members with examining the election process in its entirety, identifying problem areas and successes, and providing specific recommendations for improvement.

The 2004 General Election was categorized by the ERC as “the perfect storm.”

Paraphrasing ERC chairman Dick Lyons, Liss explained: “Numerous factors fell like dominoes, causing the counting of ballots to be delayed, and no one factor can be blamed entirely for the delay.”

Liss added, “however, in the midst of all the different factors, problems, and the review that followed, it is most important to remember above all else that the results of the election were accurate.”

The Clerk and Recorder’s office emphasizes that this singular fact – the accuracy of the election’s outcome – has never been in dispute.

“The voters of boulder County should have every confidence that, although the counting of ballots took longer than expected, after all was said and done every vote cast by an eligible voter in the 2004 General Election was counted, and it was all counted accurately,” Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Linda Salas said.

In the response, the Clerk and Recorder’s office pledges to continue to improve the way elections are conducted in Boulder County.

“We will learn from our past experience in order to improve,” the Clerk and Recorder states in the response. “We will review and revise the way the elections office is operated. We will provide new voting technologies to the voters that will increase accessibility and decrease waiting times in the polling places. We will increase the speed with which ballots are counted and results are released without sacrificing accuracy and the integrity of the elections process. We will learn, we will teach, and we will grow.”

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Patricia Demchak
Boulder County Public Information Officer
pdemchak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
303-441-3399

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