Worker says he misplaced some ballots

Election judge cites 2004 voting 'chaos' at county hearing

By Vanessa Miller, Boulder Daily Camera Staff Writer
February 18, 2005

Some of Boulder County's provisional ballots ? which should not have been counted on Election Day in November ? were placed in incorrect envelopes and scanned with the rest of the votes, an election judge said Thursday.

"I screwed up a number of provisional ballots that were supposed to go in a special envelope," said Peter Richards, who was an election judge at one of the two Flatirons Elementary School precincts during the Nov. 4 election.

 "Half of the provisional ballots went in the normal box, because it was just so busy," Richards said at the Boulder County Election Review Committee's first public hearing Thursday night.

Richards' precinct wasn't the only site that had those difficulties, he said. Another troubled precinct he cited was the Chautauqua Community House.

"This was not an isolated incident," he said. "I know some judges at other precincts that had the same problems."

Richards said Election Day problems started at his site immediately, with lines exceeding 150 people by 7 a.m. Mistakes were made and envelopes were incorrectly identified because waiting voters were impatient, the polling place was short on voting booths, and officials were unable to call for help due to busy phone lines, he said.

"It didn't say 'provisional ballot' on it and it didn't say 'provisional voter' on their foreheads," Richards said. "We couldn't figure out all that crap. Provisional ballots went into the box, like an actual vote."

Provisional ballots are distributed to voters whose eligibility is in question on Election Day. Officials identify thoseballots as provisional and check the voters' validation after all other votes are counted. If the provisional votes are validated, they are added to the precinct's tally.

Richards conceded that election judges were told during training that it was their job to mark ballots as provisional and make sure they were placed in the correct envelope.

"It was chaos," he said. "We knew what was going on, but those people that voted for the first time needed cheat sheets. 'Chaos' was the word."

In addition to problems with the provisional votes, Richards said the bundles of ballots his precinct received were incorrectly marked. He said that at least one bundle that was identified as containing 100 ballots had only 85.

"State law requires that we are able to go back and audit unused ballots, so this is a pretty important issue," said Boulder County Republican Party Chairman David Leeds, one of the review committee's 10 members, appointed by the county's Board of Commissioners in December.

Leeds said he also was concerned with Richards' admission to wrongly identifying provisional ballots.

"The information on provisional ballots is disturbing," Leeds said. "Because once a ballot is put in a ballot box, it is like any other ballot."

Chris Lucas, who also served as a Boulder County election judge during the November election, said she did not experience any of the same difficulties and was bothered by Richards' statements.

"What this gentleman is saying is very disturbing," she said. "It was up to the election judges to make sure that voters used provisional ballots. We had 100 people at our precinct, too, but it was not chaotic at all. We were experienced and we all knew what we had to do. This is a serious issue."

The review committee ? made up of four Democrats, four Republicans, one Libertarian and a non-voting representative from the Colorado Secretary of State's Office ? heard from about 10 people during its first public hearing. The group, created to review the county's election problems, said it plans to recommend possible solutions by April 15.

While many who spoke Thursday blamed the election problems on human error, including voter blunders, others said the problems stemmed from difficulties with the county's new $1.4 million voting system. The machines were developed to read voters' ink-filled boxes, but many of the 150,000 ballots delivered by Denver Printing company EagleDirect could not be read by the computer due to printing errors, officials said.

"This brings tears to my eyes," said Lynn Segal, who ripped up her mail ballot for the Boulder City Council election in March. "I won't vote until we have a hand count. I will not vote with an electronic system. I will not put my vote in a black box."