Final Pueblo Audit Results Released

DENVER, December 28, 2006 – Colorado Secretary of State Gigi Dennis Wednesday released the results of an audit of Pueblo County’s absentee voter signature verification process and her staff investigation of other election complaints lodged by Pueblo residents.

“It is clear that the Pueblo elections staff did not follow state law requiring verification of absentee ballot signatures on return of those ballots,” Secretary Dennis said. “However, our audit produced no evidence that any fraud had been committed as a result of the failure to comply.”

Secretary Dennis directed the elections division, to audit the Pueblo absentee ballot return envelopes following review of a written report by the office’s independent observer monitoring the Nov. 7 election in Pueblo. Because of multiple allegations of election law violations, Mrs. Dennis determined an outside review was required. The audit was conducted Dec. 12-13 by bipartisan staff of the Secretary’s office and election judges from Pueblo.

Specifically, the audit involved randomly pulling 5% of the 13,446 absentee ballot return envelopes and reviewing the signatures on those envelopes with the signatures on the actual absentee ballot requests. This alternative was used because of the complex paper filing system used by Pueblo to store original voter registration signature cards made timely matching of those signatures impossible.

Audit findings show that 1.6% of the signatures compared by the audit team did not match in the 5% sampling and were pulled for further review. Using that percentage of the total absentee ballots cast, 215 signatures could have required further verification through voter registration records or voter contact.

Pueblo’s elections staff said the office did not create a back-up procedure for its hand-filed registration documents because it anticipated implementation of the statewide voter registration data system. That contract was cancelled in 2005, however, and while a new contractor has been engaged, Clerks were notified it would not be available for the 2006 election by the Secretary.

“It was clear that data system would not be available early in 2006,” Mrs. Dennis said. “While we understand Pueblo’s issue, other counties implemented back-up procedures to ensure compliance. State law does not require electronic verification of signatures on absentee documents. A physical verification process is legitimate and sufficient to comply. ”

Recommendations provided to the Pueblo Clerk and Recorder’s office following the audit include:

• Developing a back-up procedure for validating absentee ballot application and return signatures to comply with state law (adopted in 2003).
• Ensuring that elections staff attend Secretary of State election law and Help America Vote Act training programs and that the clerk, who serves as the Designated Elections Official, have a procedure for ensuring compliance with state laws.
• That Pueblo begin its processing of absentee ballots 10 days prior to an election as authorized in 1-8-303, C.R.S. to allow ample time for voters to verify their signatures if they are questioned.
• That the office reconstruct its filing system for absentee ballot processing to incorporate alphabetizing to at least the second or third letter in last names to allow more efficient matching of documents.

Concerning the other complaints filed with her office, Secretary Dennis said further investigation and interviews with complainants did not indicate any verifiable statutory violations.

A copy of the Secretary of State’s full report on the audit, its conduct, the results and the results of the investigation of the other election complaints is included with this media release. The report and accompanying exhibits can be accessed via the Secretary’s web site.