{"id":128224,"date":"2026-05-08T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/candidates-discuss-election-security-and-voter-education-at-montezuma-county-clerk-debate\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T15:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T21:00:00","slug":"candidates-discuss-election-security-and-voter-education-at-montezuma-county-clerk-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/candidates-discuss-election-security-and-voter-education-at-montezuma-county-clerk-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Candidates discuss election security and voter education at Montezuma County Clerk debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jerri
Jerri Frizzell, left, and Lenetta Shull participated in a debate hosted by the Montezuma County Republicans and moderated by former Montezuma County schoolteacher Sara Broersma. They are vying for the Republican Party vote for county clerk in the June 30 primary. (Ann Marie Vanderveen\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Montezuma County Republicans hosted a friendly debate between the two county clerk candidates at the Cortez Area Chamber of Commerce Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

Republicans Lenetta Shull, chair of the county\u2019s Republican Central Committee, and Jerri Frizzell, a longtime employee of the Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office, addressed the roles of the county clerk along with election security concerns brought by voters.<\/p>\n

Shull, who is taking a leave of absence from her chair position for her campaign, and Frizzell are the only candidates vying for the job. The county Democrats do not have a contestant in the race.<\/p>\n

Frizzell has worked for the clerk\u2019s office for 16 years in addition to being a local restaurant owner managing multiple employees and budgets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love working with the public,\u201d Frizzell said. \u201cI believe in trying to make sure that the public is all aware of the elections \u2013 not only elections, but there is a motor vehicle department in there, there\u2019s a recording department. \u2029And I think there\u2019s a lot of people out there that don\u2019t know about a lot of things that those departments do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shull, who manages a food truck business on the side and has sat on the Montezuma-Cortez School District Board of Education, also discussed the importance of voter education in her introductory address and emphasized the fresh perspective she\u2019d bring to the office as a newbie.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to build on that foundation,\u201d Shull said, adding as clerk she would take a more forward role in advocating for legislation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be a part of our government and look at that legislation and say, \u2018Hey, that\u2019s not going to work in our rural community,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBecause, actually, legislation affects our elections, our vital records, our DMV.\u201d<\/p>\n

Audience members focused their questions on election security, asking about the use of Dominion Voting Systems\u2019 machines in county elections.<\/p>\n

The voting machine company sued media networks for defamation after the circulation of false claims that the company rigged the 2020 election. It now operates under a new owner with the name Liberty Vote. Montezuma County uses these machines and both candidates assured audience members that they are secure and unable to be accessed remotely.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have any questions concerning the security, the integrity of your election, volunteer to be an election judge,\u201d Shull said. \u201cThat is the best way to see how it all works. And that is one of the security issues that we have, is that we don\u2019t have enough volunteers working those elections.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a similar vein, one audience-submitted question asked clerk candidates if they believed the actions of former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters in the wake of the 2020 election were illegal.<\/p>\n

Peters was convicted of state crimes after orchestrating a security breach of her county\u2019s election system, seeking to prove voter fraud in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have reviewed all the information on Tina Peters. I\u2019ve watched the court cases. \u2029What she did was illegal,\u201d Shull said, adding, \u201cThere are steps that we can take as clerk and recorders. If we think there is something wrong, we have to follow those steps.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Shull said, she believed Peters\u2019 nine year prison sentence was excessive.<\/p>\n

An appeals court ordered Peters\u2019 nine-year sentence to be reevaluated while Gov. Jared Polis has hinted at granting her clemency.<\/p>\n

Frizzell took a different approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am not going to give my opinion on that,\u201d Frizzell said. \u201cI don\u2019t think I should have to give my opinion on that, and I won\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n

While they diverged on their responses to the Peters question, both candidates agreed on the security and importance of mail-in ballots, particularly for older voters who have difficulty making it to the polls.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere in Montezuma County, I truly believe that our mail-in ballots are very secure,\u201d Shull said, adding that cleaning up voter rolls would further secure elections.<\/p>\n

Frizzell agreed that voters who fail to change their registration after moving out of the county are an extra cost in elections, as they will receive a ballot from the clerk at their old address.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you have moved, it\u2019s your responsibility to come in and tell us that you have moved so we can send the ballots to the right place,\u201d Frizzell said. \u201cIf somebody\u2019s passed away, you have to let people know that they\u2019ve passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both also emphasized the importance of elections and political awareness among voters, adding that many are unaware of their status or affiliation, which affects their ability to vote in primary or other elections.<\/p>\n

Frizzell said she witnessed this lack of awareness as she began meeting voters at the start of her campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a lot of people who didn\u2019t realize they weren\u2019t Republicans. There was a lot of independent people out there that they don\u2019t know they\u2019re independent,\u201d Frizzell said.<\/p>\n

Helping the public understand elections and voter registration would be a fixture of her service as county clerk, she added.<\/p>\n

Shull agreed.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople don\u2019t understand how elections work, how the caucus process works, how the Electoral College works,\u201d Shull said.<\/p>\n

Registered Republicans and unaffiliated voters can vote in the upcoming primary with Election Day on June 30. To update or change registration, voters can visit GoVoteColorado.gov<\/a> or visit the Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office at 140 W. Main St. in Cortez.<\/p>\n

avanderveen@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Republicans Lenetta Shull and Jerri Frizzell make their pitch to voters ahead of primary<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[266,28,308,237,29,2972,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-128224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-local-elections","tag-montezuma-county-government","tag-newsletter","tag-primary","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128224\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128224"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=128224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}