It was just a month ago that Gov. Bill Ritter stood with a handful of county clerks at the state Capitol and urged Coloradans to vote by mail.
It would, they said, alleviate pressure at the polls on Election Day.
As it turns out, we may have traded one bottleneck for another.
There is a palpable sense of anxiety among some of the tens of thousands of people who have requested mail ballots and still haven’t received them.
Denver still has 23,000 ballots to be mailed by its elections vendor, scheduled for Friday, as does Arapahoe County. Arapahoe has received 202,000 requests for mail ballots; Denver more than 174,000. Douglas, which has received nearly 103,000 mail ballot requests, hopes to be caught up by the end of the week.
Having spoken to several county clerks, we believe they are working hard to turn around mail ballot requests. One told us she has hired 30 temps and they’re laboring until 9 every night.
Scrutiny is justifiable, though, particularly since our elected leaders have encouraged voters to use mail ballots, and even moreso if such scrutiny comes with an eye toward reform.
One thing is clear: We are in uncharted territory. Huge numbers of people want mail ballots for an election that officials say will draw maybe 90 percent of voters.
It’s apparent that county clerks are having difficulty quickly processing the massive number of applications they’ve received. They’re not printing companies, so they’ve turned to their election vendors to print and send the mail ballots.
No matter how you slice it, that adds time to even the most diligent efforts to get mail ballots out — probably about a week.
Colorado law does set a deadline, said Rich Coolidge, spokesman for the Secretary of State’s office. It says ballots shall be “mailed to the absentee elector within seventy-two hours after the receipt of the application, if the official ballots are then printed, or, if not then printed, within seventy-two hours after the printed ballots are delivered to the designated election official.”
The counties are, Coolidge said, “substantially complying” with the law.
Once the big batches have been dealt with, clerks believe they can turn around individual applications within 72 hours. Until Oct. 28, clerks are obligated to accept applications for ballots that are mailed to voters, but we would advise not waiting until then. If you pick up a mail ballot in person, the deadline is Oct. 31.
Eventually, we hope there is a comprehensive look at the issues that have arisen so far. That ought to include mail ballot application deadlines and turn-around expectations, particularly since Coloradans seem to be embracing mail ballots.
Making every effort to encourage electoral participation is a laudable goal, but it should be tempered by the logistical realities of the state’s voting infrastructure.
