Salas recall possible

Watchdog launches effort in wake of delayed results

By Kate Larsen, Boulder Daily Camera Staff Writer
November 13, 2004

A local election watchdog is taking steps toward recalling the Boulder County clerk because of her role in last week's bungled election.

Boulder resident Joe Pezzillo requested information from the county Friday on starting a petition to recall Clerk and Recorder Linda Salas, saying he would do so unless she resigns or fires someone in her office.  
"I don't understand how we can have an environment like this where people can make mistakes with our elections and no one is held responsible," Pezzillo said. "I find that unacceptable."

Boulder County lagged days behind the rest of the country in counting results from the Nov. 2 election, and numerous glitches arose during the tally. Many voters were outraged that their ballots remained uncounted long after national races had been called.

Salas, who headed another bungled election as a town clerk four years ago, said ballot printing errors caused the counting delays and the system counted every vote accurately.

Salas said Pezzillo has "a right to do whatever he would like to do" but said a recall effort is premature.

"We are researching and looking at the ballots, having a review committee put together," Salas said. "There's no way I'm going to point at anyone in my office and fire anyone."

She has said she takes "full responsibility" for the election problems.

County Commissioner Tom Mayer agreed residents should withhold judgment until an investigation is completed by a seven-member election review committee that will be ed by county officials soon.

"The biggest problem we had was that the vote count was really later than we wanted," Mayer said. "We're not talking about malfeasance in office here."

Pezzillo said he requested recall information from the county commissioners' office and Salas' office but had not received a response as of Friday evening. He said he's simply seeking information at this point.

"I'd still like to offer (Salas) the opportunity to do the right thing for her professional integrity and resign," Pezzillo said.

If Salas doesn't resign or blame a staff member for the election mistakes, Pezzillo said he's confident he can collect the required amount of signatures ? about 25,000 ? within a week or two.

"There'll be no problem finding enough citizens discontented with this system," Pezzillo said.

He's also calling for residents to form a separate review committee.

The $1.4 million system purchased by the county in the spring requires voters to fill out paper ballots, which are then fed through a machine that scans the ballot into a computer and reads the vote off of that image.

The system looks for voters' ink-filled boxes in certain places on the ballots, but the 150,000 ballots delivered by Denver printing company EagleDirect were unreadable to the computer because of errors. Thousands of otherwise flawless ballots had to be counted by resolution committees, each consisting of a technician and two judges.

The printing mistakes weren't picked up in pre-election tests of a batch of ballots.

Printing problems also were to blame when about 300 ballots had to be hand-counted after a September 2000 annexation election in Erie, where Salas was town clerk.

The voting machines didn't work well then because the company that made the ballots didn't properly print or test them before shipping, Salas told the Daily Camera in 2000.

Pezzillo said competent management could have prevented many of last week's election problems.

"They're blaming every single other party except for themselves," he said. "Had they run basic tests on the system, all of these basic problems should have been revealed."

Applications are coming into the commissioners' office now for the election review committee, which will convene after Thanksgiving. The Board of Commissioners will appoint four members, and Salas will appoint three.

The committee has no deadline for its work ? a fact that has drawn more criticism.

"They should have a time frame, a deadline," said Mary Eberle, a Boulder resident and election judge.

Eberle was critical when officials purchased the new system and is unhappy with the recent election, but she said she isn't sure recalling Salas or appointing a review committee will change anything.

"It's a bad county process like so many of them," Eberle said.