All voting households in Denver will receive a postcard giving a reminder of when ballots must be returned for the May 5 election. (Image provided by Denver Elections Division)
The Denver Elections Division is ramping up a big effort to clean up on the return envelope flaps of many mail ballots for the May 5 municipal election.
More than 215,000 households with registered voters will get the postcard shown above, reminding them that they must return ballots by 7 p.m. May 5. Another 90,000 or so voters who opted in to receive e-mail from the Elections Division will get e-mails with the same information, spokesman Alton Dillard said Tuesday.
The inside flap of a ballot return envelope for the May 5 election was printed mistakenly with the date of the potential June 2 run-off election due to a vendor’s error, the Denver Elections Division says. (Submitted photo)
Sending the postcards to help fix the screw-up will cost $8,500, but Dillard says taxpayers won’t pay for that. The vendors — — will foot the bill, he said.
Last week, the widespread error was discovered as ballots began hitting mailboxes. The return envelope’s flap says ballots must be returned by 7 p.m. June 2, which is the date of a potential run-off election. Other ballot materials gave the correct election date.
“As we continued to investigate, it became apparent that the vendor and their subcontractor had no idea how many voters were affected by their error,” Dillard wrote in an e-mail. “So we decided to send a reminder to all voter households. Voters will receive their reminders next week, well in advance of the May 5 General Municipal Election.”
The back of the postcard includes information on the Ballot TRACE service, the Denver Votes app and ways to contact the Elections Division.
