A poll watcher had to be escorted out of a clerk’s office because she wouldn’t follow the rules. Extra patrols have been added around Denver’s 45 ballot drop boxes to make sure they stay secure. In Wheat Ridge, people have called authorities because they don’t like their neighbors’ yard signs with foul language. And in Grand Junction, stolen ballots were reported by people who got emails that they had voted when they hadn’t.
Colorado law enforcement officers are busier than ever responding to calls about election security – some real and some imagined.
But because the appearance of law enforcement near polling places and ballot boxes can be perceived as unnerving, chiefs and sheriffs say they’re trying to balance frivolous calls for service and run-of-the-mill neighbor-to-neighbor tension about political choices with legitimate threats to a democratic outcome.
“We try and balance the idea of offering our protective element of service with the idea that not everyone is comfortable seeing us,” said Wheat Ridge Police Chief Chris Murtha. “We never want to be accused of being the group that dissuades folks from voting.”
The sprawling federal law enforcement apparatuses based in Colorado have done emergency exercises at the Ball Arena because there will be an Avs game that night, which is the largest planned crowd gathering in Colorado on Nov. 5.
There will also be a command post stood up on Monday and will be taken down mid-week depending on the need, said FBI Special Agent In Charge Mark Michalek.
No specific threats in Colorado
Nationally, federal officials warned of foreign adversaries using false or misleading narratives to undermine confidence in the 2024 elections. Michalek said that in Colorado, there weren’t any specific threats of this nature, but he warned of threats of violence against election officials.
Just two weeks ago, a Cortez man pleaded guilty to making a series of online threats toward election officials in Colorado and Arizona, including a judge and law enforcement officers.
On one social media account, the man, Teak Brockbank, posted, “I live in Communist Colorado and this Crazed Liberal and many others in Communist Colorado needs to – no has to hang, she has to hang by the neck until she’s dead, dead, dead.”
Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold said earlier this year that she was the target of Brockbank's threats.
Ballot theft under investigation
Authorities on the Western Slope say they continue to investigate how more than a dozen mail ballots were stolen before they were delivered to their intended recipients and then cast by someone else.
State officials said in a news conference three of those ballots got through and were counted before they were caught by a signature identifier. Authorities were alerted when voters said they received an email verifying that they voted when they hadn’t even received their ballots yet. No one has been arrested in the case so far, but the investigation is ongoing.
In Gilpin County, a GOP poll watcher was kicked out of the county administrative building and dismissed from her duties as a watcher after disrupting county clerk employees, Gilpin County Clerk Sahari McCormick said.
“It was unfortunate that election workers, county staff and voters were caught up in the drama,” McCormick said. “Everyone needs to be assured that those who are processing the ballots are committed to their role, take their oath of office seriously and are working hard to serve the voters.”
A sheriff’s deputy said he decided against citing the woman, Donna Okray Parman.
In an online post about the incident, Parman said the officer was “just doing his job.”
“He had to respond to Sahari’s complaint and said he doesn’t want to arrest me,” Parman said. “He had only arrested one other Grandma, but it was for a DUI. This was probably less exciting for him.”
Illegal voting rare
In 11 years of Pueblo District Attorney Jeff Chostner’s time at the helm, he said there have been two convictions for voting illegally and he’s investigated several others.
In the two convictions, the legally registered voter testified that the signature on the ballot was not theirs and had been illegally submitted by another person.
Chostner said in the most recent completed election, in 2023, Chostner sent more than 900 letters to voters with signature problems, like the signature on the ballot didn’t match what they signed when they registered to vote.
“In virtually all of the potential cases, the voter’s signature was suspected because of a variation in the nature of the signature itself due to illness, age, infirmity,” Chostner said. “In all cases, the individuals had to certify to my investigators that the signature on the ballot was the same one as the as on the initial registration document.”
Quiet in the capital city
Denver police say that the 2024 election cycle has been relatively quiet in the state’s largest city with the most ballot boxes and polling stations, but they still have off-duty officers around the most trafficked drop boxes regularly.
So far, no election-related citations or arrests have been made.
“At this time, no threats have been identified in Denver,” said DPD spokesman Doug Schepman. “Off-duty officers are present at drive-thru ballot drop-off locations to assist with traffic flow and to address safety issues.”
Wheat Ridge’s Chief Murtha said the election security load is just one more thing officers are asked to do nowadays that wasn’t part of their duties when he started several decades ago.
He’s built up patrols around the election boxes since reports of drop boxes being set on fire in Washington last week. He said he doesn’t have the staff to keep someone at the drop boxes at all times, but he asks officers to write reports in their cars within eyeshots of the area.
“It does get really emotional for people and we’re feeling that,” Murtha said. “For me, I’m worried about everything all of the time, so it doesn’t matter who wins or loses, I worry either way. It comes with the job.”
- Investigation continues into how Colorado voting machine passwords ended up online
- Secretary of State Griswold discusses voting equipment password leak, says employee responsible is gone
- Passwords for voting equipment posted on Secretary of State’s website, but officials say there’s no immediate security risk
- What we know about the voter fraud scheme in Mesa County
