{"id":50097,"date":"2020-12-03T11:38:16","date_gmt":"2020-12-03T18:38:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-to-certify-its-election-results-soon-without-controversy\/"},"modified":"2020-12-03T18:38:16","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T18:38:16","slug":"colorado-to-certify-its-election-results-soon-without-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-to-certify-its-election-results-soon-without-controversy\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado to certify its election results soon \u2014 without controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Election
Election officials collect ballots out of a ballot box in Gunnison County. Voters turned out for early voting in the parking lot of the Blackstock Government Building on Oct. 19.<\/span>Dean Krakel\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado\u2019s election results will be official within a week at the most without the controversies surrounding lawsuits and certification seen in other states.<\/p>\n

All but one of the state\u2019s 63 counties<\/a> certified their election results last week. Gunnison County experienced a delay after elections officials contracted COVID-19 and expects to certify results this week.<\/p>\n

The Secretary of State\u2019s Office will certify the statewide results as soon as an automatic recount for district attorney in the 18th Judicial District is completed. That recount began Tuesday and must be completed by Dec. 8 but is expected to finish sooner.<\/p>\n

The county canvass boards that certify elections are composed of the county clerk and an equal number of members from the Democratic and Republican parties. In two counties, Jefferson and Boulder, the Republican members refused to sign certification documents, but in 36 other counties contacted by The Colorado Sun no objections were reported. A majority of the board members is required to certify the election results.<\/p>\n

The Republican objection in Jefferson County related to a request to audit computer software code even after the county conducted a hand audit of the paper ballots. Two Republican canvass board members refused to certify the results, but the two Democratic members and Democratic Clerk George Stern signed off.<\/p>\n

In Boulder County, the one Republican on the canvass board declined to sign the certification. But that isn\u2019t unusual in Boulder County. It\u2019s the ninth time since 2012 that the party\u2019s board member hasn\u2019t certified the election in the heavily Democratic county. The Boulder County clerk\u2019s office said the GOP board member requested additional information under the Colorado Open Records Act \u2014 documents the elections staff said fall outside the purview of the canvass board responsibilities.<\/p>\n

In Adams County, the Republican Party raised questions similar to those from its counterpart in Jefferson County about Dominion Voting\u2019s software<\/a> that\u2019s become a focal point for President Donald Trump\u2019s false allegations and attempts to delegitimize the election. But the Republican representative on Adams County\u2019s canvass board signed the election certification.<\/p>\n

Many Colorado counties use Dominion software. U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr told the Associated Press on Tuesday there was no evidence of fraud nationally that would have changed the election outcome.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Jena Griswold\u2019s office confirmed that it received the official vote abstract from Adams, Boulder and Jefferson counties. The results were \u201ccertified by a majority of members of their canvass boards, thus satisfying statutory requirements,\u201d wrote Betsy Hart, a Griswold spokeswoman, in an email.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Republican Party sent a fundraising email Nov. 5, with a false statement about \u201creports of potential fraud taking place across America,\u201d but this week party spokesman Joe Jackson said \u201cwe\u2019ve been clear from the state party on our confidence in the Colorado election system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado is one of three states where a risk-limited audit of election results is required by law. That audit took place two weeks ago, with county clerk\u2019s offices comparing randomly selected paper ballots to results determined by computer tabulations of the ballots. Some 95% of Colorado\u2019s vote is recorded on paper ballots, said Pam Anderson, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association.<\/p>\n

\"Election
Election officials process ballots for the 2020 election at the Douglas County clerk&#x2019;s office in Castle Rock on Oct. 30.<\/span>Kevin Mohatt\/Special to The Colorado Sun<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Once the audit is completed, canvass boards meet in each county to certify election results. Those boards consist of the county clerk and an even number of Democrats and Republicans appointed by their county political parties.<\/p>\n

The process typically occurs in the background, but clerks are reporting increased complaints from voters connected to the disinformation pushed by Trump about other states. \u201cWe still have some voters contacting us wanting the county to not certify the election results or asking us to conduct an audit,\u201d said Peg Perl, the Arapahoe County director of elections.<\/p>\n

Perl said she replies that the county conducted a two-round audit and the canvass board, which participated in the audit, certified the results unanimously last week.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat people don\u2019t realize is that these are public boards appointed by the parties that are accountable for the election process,\u201d Anderson said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a big accounting project. There\u2019s not really a role for politics there. Our experienced canvass board members know that and understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson served as Jefferson County clerk and recorder for eight years. \u201cAs a clerk I didn\u2019t have anyone not sign off on certification. There were times here and there you would have a canvass board member that took a more activist perspective,\u201d she said, referring to those who raised questions outside the scope of their role.<\/p>\n

Gunnison County couldn\u2019t certify its election results last week because COVID-19 infections in the clerk\u2019s office prevented the canvass board from meeting. Gunnison County Clerk Kathy Simillion said the office was closed for a week, and she went to the emergency room twice because of the illness. She returned to the reopened office Monday, feeling fatigued.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite the experience, Simillion said. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to regroup and get everything back together.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she hoped to convene the canvass board electronically this week.<\/p>\n

Once the state certifies the results, the Electoral College electors from Colorado will meet to cast their ballots for Joe Biden, the winner of the state\u2019s presidential election.<\/p>\n

The electors and their alternates will meet at the Capitol on Dec. 14 and undergo health screenings and COVID-19 testing, according to Conor Cahill, spokesman for Gov. Jared Polis.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s another step in the process that is often overlooked. But in 2016, the electors meeting in Colorado became national news and led to a major court case.<\/p>\n

One of Colorado\u2019s electors tried to cast his vote for then-Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican, in an effort to defeat Trump in the Electoral College. The Republican Secretary of State at the time, Wayne Williams, removed that so-called faithless elector and replaced him with an alternate.<\/p>\n

The elector sued Williams\u2019 office in a case that ultimately went to the U.S. Supreme Court. In July, the court upheld Colorado\u2019s law requiring electors to cast their ballots for the winner of the state\u2019s popular vote.<\/p>\n

Ashley Carter and Austin Lammers contributed to this report, working for COLab, the Colorado News Collaborative, and Election SOS, a national program supporting journalists during the 2020 election. COLab is a nonprofit coalition of more than 90 newsrooms across Colorado working together to better serve the public, including The Colorado Sun.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, journalist-owned news outlet exploring issues of statewide interest. Sign up for a newsletter and read more at coloradosun.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read more at The Colorado Sun<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recount in a district attorney race is the outstanding step before the electoral vote<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,266,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-50097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50097","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=50097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50097\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50097"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=50097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}