Colorado county clerks say the surge of motivated election deniers bent on intimidating voters and election judges didn’t materialize throughout Tuesday’s election, however they did report document numbers of ballots turned in on Election Day.
The election employees had expressed concern that the deniers — a part of a nationwide try and manufacture proof of election fraud — would swarm polling locations Tuesday. To organize, clerks ramped up coaching efforts to assist employees de-escalate potential conflicts, tightened safety measures and invited deniers into their workplaces to indicate them how Colorado’s voting system works.
Government Director Matt Crane of the Colorado County Clerks Affiliation stated for essentially the most half, Election Day went easily for county clerks throughout the state.
“We had been very pleasantly shocked, not too many points throughout the board,” he stated. “I feel there could have been a few poll containers with some aggressive watchers, however actually nothing like we had been anticipating fairly frankly, which is nice.”
Clerks throughout the state, together with in Larimer County, echoed these sentiments.
“I all the time inform our election judges, ‘don’t let the noise get in your head as a result of it by no means materializes.’ And we’re prepared if it does … but it surely simply by no means materializes,” stated clerk Angela Myers. “And this yr was no totally different. We had nearly no points in any way.”
Nonetheless, the county elections officers had purpose to be nervous and ready. One man in Chaffee County tried to steal a password to the election system final yr, clerk Lori Mitchell stated. And police arrested a Pueblo man earlier this month after they stated he tampered with a voting machine throughout the June main.
One other poll in Adams County was returned containing a suspicious substance and officers turned it over to the FBI. Investigators later decided that the substance was not dangerous. Main as much as the election consultants repeatedly warned that clerks ought to put together for widespread and baseless claims of election fraud throughout or after the midterms.
Fanning the flames regionally are election deniers like conservative radio host Joe Oltmann, of Fort Rock, who gave Republican gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl his endorsement this week.
And nationwide figures like conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell, former President Donald Trump’s nationwide safety adviser, Michael Flynn, after which Trump himself.
On Election Day, Ganahl — who acquired the endorsement of Tina Peters, the indicted Mesa County clerk dealing with expenses on allegations of breaching voting tools safety — requested county clerks to report vote totals in a selected means that’s totally different from their common processes. Ganahl spent the ultimate days of her marketing campaign courting election deniers. (Crane stated clerks reached out to Ganahl early within the marketing campaign to reply any questions in regards to the election course of, however her “marketing campaign blew us off.”)
Election deniers present no signal of slowing and a number of other consultants instructed JHB in October that they’d watch the 2022 outcomes to anticipate how loud the denial effort shall be throughout the 2024 presidential election.
However Mitchell stated the election judges and watchers working throughout the midterm election carried out admirably. The one concern the county had on Election Day was elections employees coping with lots of adverse feedback and “grilling” from voters at a Buena Vista polling location. She additionally stated they’d a ballot watcher final week who was making judges nervous, however that individual didn’t return a second day.
In El Paso County, clerk Chuck Broerman stated judges seen greater than 3,000 hours of video of poll drop containers and didn’t see anybody create any points or drop off extra ballots than legally allowed. There was one one that was questioning the credentials of election employees, he stated, and one other who adopted the poll pickup group, however these had been the one two situations.
That doesn’t imply distinguished election deniers have given up although. There’s already some site visitors on-line demanding recounts and questioning why the counting is taking so lengthy, Crane stated. Oltmann has begun alleging fraud — with out proof — earlier than all the outcomes are even tabulated.
“We’re simply making an attempt to maintain educating folks that what’s taking place proper now’s completely regular. There’s nothing nefarious happening,” Crane stated. Crane added that many don’t understand the “dangerous actors and grifters” are mendacity to them, so elections employees are doing what they’ll to push again towards the lies.
Officers had additionally warned about misinformation spreading earlier than the election, together with that individuals ought to camp out close to 24-hour poll containers (already below video surveillance), purposely mismark their ballots to make sure they’re hand counted (this doesn’t occur), and wait till after 3 p.m. on Election Day to keep away from vote tampering (there’s no proof of tampering and ready solely delays outcomes).
Some like GOP leaders in Eagle County, nonetheless, continued to inform voters to carry onto their ballots till Election Day, resulting in the excessive numbers.
In Chaffee County, voters turned in 2,900 ballots on Election Day, Mitchell stated. In 2020, it was 1,032, and in 2018, it was 1,811.
In Larimer County, practically double the ballots that had been turned in on Election Day in 2020 had been turned in on Tuesday, with about 66,000, Myers stated. In 2016, a presidential yr, it was about 45,000.
Equally, El Paso County had a document variety of ballots on Election Day: 100,000 ballots. Within the earlier election, it was 68,000, in response to Broerman.
Broerman attributes that enhance to individuals telling voters to carry onto their ballots (which he believes works to the detriment of their occasion and candidates) and the size and complexity of the ballots this yr — he stated this was the longest one in El Paso in 34 years.
In Weld County, whereas the 45,000 ballots acquired is excessive, it was the second-highest, with extra acquired in 2020, in response to clerk Carly Koppes.