{"id":25399,"date":"2024-10-11T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-to-know-as-nov-5-approaches\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:16:35","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:16:35","slug":"what-to-know-as-nov-5-approaches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/what-to-know-as-nov-5-approaches\/","title":{"rendered":"What to know as Nov. 5 approaches"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The offices of the Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder, Assessor and Treasurer will start a four-day week May 1. (Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In light of the fast-approaching election, The Journal<\/em> sat down with Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder Kim Percell.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 2, Montezuma County invited the public to check out its Logic and Accuracy Test at the Clerk and Recorder\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, we want to make sure all of our equipment is tabulating correctly,\u201d Percell said.<\/p>\n

What they do is have judges come in and randomly vote on the ballot. They then process those ballots through tabulation machines, and double check its results with a hand tally.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just a pre-election test,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Percell said most concerns people voice deal with the tabulation machines. People have even asked the commissioners if they could count votes by hand instead.<\/p>\n

The machines have never been incorrect, Percell said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd nine times out of 10, when we do the logic and accuracy testing, the part that holds us up and the part we have the most difficulty with is the hand tally,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, Percell said they\u2019ve really beefed up physical security.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have cameras in every drop box, there\u2019s a 24-hour camera. We have cameras in the election room \u2013 there\u2019s four of them \u2013 and we have door security so everyone that goes in the room has to log in and log out,\u201d Percell said.<\/p>\n

They review camera footage each day, and each night, it\u2019s backed up for records.<\/p>\n

Plus, she said there\u2019s \u201cbipartisan teams\u201d every step of the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we pick up ballots, there\u2019s two people that pick them up, there\u2019s two people that bring them in,\u201d said Percell. \u201cWe log when they\u2019re picked up by those two people, we log when they\u2019re brought into the office, so there\u2019s dual logs on every step of the process.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ballot this year is 17 inches long, which is undoubtedly large, but not unheard of.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a 22-inch ballot in the past,\u201d she said. That one was two pages.<\/p>\n

As the election gets closer, \u201cmake sure your \u2026 ballot is going to go where you want it to go, and if you have any questions, come by and see us,\u201d Percell said.<\/p>\n

Check out the county\u2019s website<\/a> and below for important dates.<\/p>\n

\n

Fast facts <\/h4>\n

Important Dates <\/strong>Oct. 11: Ballots mailed to eligible votersOct. 21 to Nov. 4 (Monday-Friday): At the Montezuma County Annex (107 N. Chestnut St.), the Cortez Vote Center is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 2: The Cortez Vote Center in the Annex Building will be open 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4: The Towaoc Vote Center opens 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 485 Sunset Blvd., the Ute Mountain Ute Community Center. Tuesday, Nov. 5 \u2013 Election Day: The Cortez, Towaoc, Mancos and Dolores vote centers are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.<\/p>\n

24\/7 dropbox locations<\/strong>Starting Oct. 11: Montezuma County Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office, 140 W. Main St. Ste 1 in Cortez.<\/p>\n

Starting Oct. 21<\/strong>Dolores Town Hall, 601 Central Ave. in Dolores. Mancos Town Hall, 117 N. Main St. in Mancos. Cortez City Hall, 123 Roger Smith Ave. in Cortez. Lewis Post Office: 18794 Hwy. 491 in Lewis. Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Headquarters: 125 Mike Was Road in Towaoc.<\/p>\n

Polling Locations (On Nov. 5, all are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.)<\/strong>Montezuma County Annex 1, 107 N. Chesnut in Cortez. Ute Mountain Ute Community Center, 485 Sunset Blvd. in Towaoc. Mancos Public Library, 211 W. 1st St. in Mancos. Dolores Public Library, 1002 Railroad Ave. in Dolores.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

and Accuracy Testing just happened, and ballots will be mailed out Oct. 11<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,44,266,28,308,83,60,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-dolores","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-local-elections","tag-mancos","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25399","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=25399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78917,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25399\/revisions\/78917"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25399"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}