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Amy D. Mitchell
Park County Commissioner
District 1
856 Castello Avenue
Fairplay, CO 80440
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November 1, 2022
Ms. Jena Griswold
Colorado Secretary of State
1700 Broadway, Suite 200
Denver, CO 80290
RE: Voter Integrity Concerns – Park County Clerk & Recorder’s Office
Outside Interference by Park County Republican Party Officials
Immediate Call-to-Action Required & Requested
Dear Secretary Griswold:
On October 31, 2022, it came to my attention that we in Park County are facing some egregious infractions pursuant to Colorado Election statutes that we request your immediate action to address. The infractions result from the void left by the September 15th retirement of Clerk and Recorder Debra Green, leadership inexperience of the Deputy Clerk and the complete lack of experience of the interim Clerk and Recorder. Additionally, the Clerk’s Fairplay office is staffed with The Clerk, the Deputy Clerk and only three employees that have been with the County less than 6 weeks.
In mid-October, 2022, PCP, Precinct 9, Joyce Hines reached out to the Clerk’s office to gather information on scheduling Election Judges. She learned that as an Election Judge in the Primary she was not going to serve in the General Election. It was subsequently learned that most of the Election Judges gathered at caucus and who served in the Primary Election would not be allowed to be an election judged for the Mid-Term General Election. It was further learned that the majority of the Republican Election Judges were being sourced and selected by Park County Republican Central Committee (PCRCC) Chair Deb Elsner. The new judges were chosen by a Republican Chair campaigning for a Democrat. They were chosen after the standard County General Election Judge training and were afforded their own training class, which poses additional concerns about what they were taught. This action by Chairwoman Elsner infringes on the state election statute for proper protocol pursuant to section:
- (1 and 3). List furnished by precinct committeepersons.[1]
- No later than ten days after the precinct caucus in even-numbered years, the committeepersons of each precinct from each major political party shall submit to the county chairpersons of their respective political parties a list that was initiated at the precinct caucus and that recommends registered electors as election judges. The registered electors recommended as election judges must reside in the precinct and have a current affiliation with the political party that held the precinct caucus.
- 1-6-103 (3) In recommending registered electors as election judges, the county chairperson may select only names from the list submitted by the precinct committeepersons. However, the county chairperson may recommend additional registered electors to the county clerk and recorder if the precinct committeepersons do not provide enough names to the county chairperson.
Each county precinct did in fact submit from the 2022 Republican Caucus sufficient numbers of Election Judges for each election location (28 total judge applicants); these judges were used in the Primary Election. However, Chairwoman Elsner declined most every election judge that was used for the Primary and instead located and hand selected new judges, those who categorize as friends and supporters. Having spent the better part of the general election cycle campaigning for the Democrat Commissioner Candidate (Ms. Elsner is a Republican County Chair) Park County Republicans see this as a direct conflict of interest and undermining the two-party system.
Chairwoman Elsner violates the tenets of Election Integrity pursuant to section 1-6-104 (1, 3). Appointment of election judges by county clerk and recorder and designated election officials.
(1) For each election coordinated by the county clerk and recorder, the county clerk and recorder shall appoint election judges for each location where election activities are occurring.
(3) If, at the time the county clerk and recorder appoints election judges, the list of recommended election judges submitted in accordance with section 1-6-102 contains an insufficient number of names for a major political party’s share of the total number of election judges as required in section 1-6-109, the designated election official shall appoint any additional election judges necessary from among the persons recommended by minor political parties in accordance with section 1-6-103.5 and the unaffiliated voters who have offered to serve as election judges in accordance with section 1-6-103.7.
Additionally, Chair Elsner would not certify Poll Watchers that were not hand-picked by her. Because of this fact, those concerned about election integrity found an Issues Committee and a Write-In Candidate that would certify poll watchers for Park County concerned Republicans. Ballots have been processed without notification, even though the schedule was asked for, causing suspicion of improper proceedings. The schedule was received today, November 1, 2022.
I understand Park County has been placed on a watch list due to the departure of retired Clerk Debra Green. I contend Park County could suffer or be accused of election tampering due to the control of Park County Republican Chair Debra Elsner’s conflict of interest, violation of Statute, the lack of transparency of the training her chosen Election Judges received, and unwatched ballot processing. I respectfully ask you to send a person, preferably a retired Clerk and Recorder that has no past ties to Park County to supervise the remainder of the election.
Thank you in advance for your assistance,
Park County
County Commissioner District 1
Amy D. Mitchell
Cell: 719-838-0340
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[1] Ref A: A2148844137345EDB83130768A39A1BB Ref B: LAX311000115049 Ref C: 2022-11-01T15:17:51Z
To: Chuck Broerman, El Paso County Clerk and Recorder
From: Xxxxxxx Xxxx, Canvass Member
July: July 20, 2022
Re: Minority Report
(CLICK HERE for report in .pdf)
First, I would like to note that the Clerk and Recorder staff in the Fort Carson room were helpful and friendly while I worked as a Ballot Intake Judge.
This Minority Report details the election issues I witnessed which resulted in my decision to vote not to certify the 2022 El Paso County Primary Election. My decision was based on the following:
- Chain of custody for ballots was broken. On Election Day, I opened a ballot container delivered from a drop box location with a log sheet containing only one judge’s signature, not the required two bipartisan judge’s signatures. This was not an isolated event. Later that evening as polls closed and ballot containers poured in, another judge stated, “I have an empty log sheet.” A supervisor later announced, “please let me know if you come across any blank log sheets so we can take care of it.” This announcement clearly indicated there were multiple blank log sheets, also missing information.
- Ballots Cast. 8 CCR 1505-1 Rule 1.1.9 “the number of ballots cast” is now the number of ballots received by the Clerk, excluding mail ballots returned by the post office as undeliverable. During my time as an election judge we opened ballot drop box containers that included envelopes stating, “Stop cheating I told you this person passed away 20 years ago!” or “This person has never lived here, stop sending ballots.” Many undeliverable ballots with yellow USPS stickers were also included in these drop box containers that arrived from different locations in our county. There was even a blue ballot from last year’s election in the mix. For these reasons, I question the legitimacy of any ballot put into a drop box.
- Agilis machine inconsistency. As the volume of ballots increased on the last two days, the Agilis machine began rejecting ballots at an alarming rate compared to earlier performance. These ballots filtered into the “other” slot, not the “sig ver” slot. These nearly 6000 ballots were put into red trays. I was told that they had signature discrepancies. They were purposefully held to be signature verified the day following the election. I was never given a satisfactory explanation for this change, except that judges would be better prepared and well rested the following day. If the Agilis system cannot handle all the ballots, then there’s a problem with the system.
- Election judges and poll watchers were routinely excused to go home, leaving clerk staff alone with unsecured ballots without the benefit of oversight and observation.
Timely access to video surveillance would set me at ease.
- Ballot envelopes were being improperly stored in the El Paso County Assessor’s storage closet alongside crockpots and Christmas decorations. Shouldn’t these envelopes, that hold voters’ Personally Identifiable Information, including signatures, be under the care and security of the Clerk and Recorder at all times? I was told no. However, the envelopes are clearly part of the election records and must be securely stored under video surveillance in the same manner as all other election records.
- The Risk Limiting Audit (RLA) is not random. The RLA conducted in this race proved to be a top-down process in which the Secretary of State controlled which ballots to audit. The RLA process seemingly only verified that the paper ballot resembled what was captured by the computer in an image. Based on my observation during the process, the popularity of several candidates outpaced the reported outcome of their races. A hand count audit of randomly selected ballots would be the only way to actually audit ballots and votes cast, thus giving confidence to voters about the veracity of a true audit.
- Voter rolls need to be reconstructed to identify only legitimate voters. There were approximately 20,000 ballots returned as undeliverable during this election. A shocking 36 USPS trays full of undeliverable ballots were returned in the first week alone. By the end of the election there was a wall of over 56 USPS trays containing undeliverable ballots. In the last 2021 minority report, the Clerk made a verbal commitment to clean up the voter rolls, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
As a Canvass Board Member, I request the following items: All Cast Vote Records (CVR), all ballot drop box records, all video surveillance (to include: drop boxes, sorting and counting rooms, adjudication and tabulation rooms,) all records pertaining to signature verification, all records and report related to voter registration and voter history, and all electronic voting systems logs specified in the 2002 Voting System Standards mandated by CRS Title 1, Article 5, Part 6 and pursuant to CRS 1-10.5-107 (3).
Based on several of the above statements which pose concerns on how ballots were handled, I could not in good conscience certify the 2022 Primary Election.
Respectfully,
Xxxxxxx Xxxx
Canvass Board Member
El Paso County
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