DENVER—Conflicting residency requirements in state and local election laws aren’t enough to prompt changes to how Tuesday’s election is counted, a Denver judge ruled late Monday.
The decision, handed down less than 24 hours before votes are counted, means that local elections overseers won’t have to manually separate ballots in elections with different residency deadlines.
The conflict between state and local deadlines was exacerbated this year by implementation of a new statewide voting law meant to streamline voting. Among the law’s provisions is a new deadline for registering, allowing voters to register and vote the same day. That conflicts with many longer residency requirements for local elections such as school board contests.
Denver District Judge Michael Martinez agreed that the conflict is problematic. But he ruled that county clerks are doing an adequate job complying with the varying deadlines.
Libertarians had asked a Denver judge to require separate vote-counting for local races with different residency deadlines.
If they had prevailed, it could have prompted Election Day confusion and possible delays in reporting results.
Martinez pointed out that small numbers of voters faced the dilemma, and that Libertarians didn’t produce any voters with real stories of facing possible disenfranchisement in a local contest because they didn’t meet residency requirements.
The judge said that county clerks “have done their level best” to comply with all the requirements of the new election law and don’t need last-minute instruction on counting ballots properly.
