With less than 60,000 ballots cast in Denver’s primary election Tuesday, you might have expected votes to be tallied long before 1 a.m.
You would be wrong.
The Denver Elections Division had no problems and no snafus, but it still took six hours to process ballots in this election, which drew a mere 23 percent of the city’s active voters.
It’s not that 1 a.m. is completely unreasonable, but we wonder what it means for vote-counting on election day in November, which probably will draw 80 percent of the city’s active voters.
We surely don’t want to see the presidential election count drag on for days with the eyes of the country on Denver, wondering what is going on here.
Denver Elections Director Michael Scarpello assures us that all went well in the primary count, and this paper ballot system just takes time. But he said he doesn’t expect it will take days to count votes after the November election.
We hope not.
Scarpello said the country as a whole is moving toward paper balloting, which is labor intensive. “You’re going to see all around the country slow counts on that night,” he said.
In Denver, some time-consuming steps include driving precinct boxes to a central processing facility, opening mail ballots dropped off on election day, and feeding ballots through an optical scanner.
We understand the practice involves a lot of steps and precautions, but in Douglas County, which had 33,845 ballots cast, counting was finished by 10:30 pm. using paper ballots and optical scanners. It makes you wonder how Dougco, which also had problems with its elections two years ago, managed to move so quickly.
In any case, we agree with the Election Division’s focus on ensuring access to the polls and, above all, an accurate count. Those goals cannot be compromised.
But it’s also true that the public’s trust in an election outcome is partially influenced by the speed in which results are delivered. If counts drag on a terribly long time, people start to wonder what’s going on.
Given the problems Denver had two years ago with its electronic pollbook, it’s important for the city to work on rebuilding trust. That is accomplished by holding one smooth election after another.
Scarpello said the primary showed some ways in which the system can be tweaked to improve election processes. We’re hopeful that he and others who’ve worked on retooling the system are successful in their efforts.
