COLORADO SPRINGS — An El Paso County clerical error was apparently to blame for Planned Parenthood shooting suspect Robert Lewis Dear Jr. being listed as a woman on his voter registration card – a detail that fueled over his gender identity.
Ryan Parsell, El Paso County’s chief deputy clerk and recorder, said his office incorrectly recorded Dear’s gender in October 2014, leading to the issuance of both a driver’s license and voter’s registration card erroneously identifying him as a woman.
“The Clerk and Recorder’s Office processes over 500,000 transactions a year,” Parsell said. “Mistakes are going to be made, and it is a reminder to us of the important job that we do to see that a mistake made by us has had national implications.”
Although Dear clearly identified himself as a man, the information was incorrectly logged into a computer, Parsell added.
“Our employee inadvertently clicked on ‘female’ and gave the confirmation to Mr. Dear to review,” he said. “He missed it and signed it.”
Thirteen days later, Dear received the erroneous driver’s license in the mail. Records show he traveled to a Department of Motor Vehicles office in Salida to report the error and request a corrected license, which he received, Parsell said.
Read the full report, and see Dear’s original voter registration documents at
