With just over two months until Election Day, Montezuma County is preparing for a high-stakes election season. But to Montezuma County Clerk Kim Percell, the November presidential election won’t look very different compared to previous years.
Percell, a Republican, was elected to her position in 2014, and is partway through her second four-year term.
“We’ve been working on this process for seven years, and we have fine-tuned bits and pieces of it,” she said. “We’re always looking at each and every process … [and] anything that’s needed to be tweaked.”
The biggest difference in the 2020 election will be enhanced safety measures for COVID-19, she explained. Election judges and polling officials will be required to wear masks and practice social distancing, and voter service and polling centers, open on Election Day, will have safety measures for the public as well. Further guidelines and details will be released by state officials in the coming weeks, she said.
This year’s election will be conducted entirely by mail, as every election in Colorado has since 2013. Ballots will be mailed the week of Oct. 12, and every registered voter in the state will receive a ballot.
Percell is also confident the U.S. Postal Service will deliver ballots to voters and back effectively.
“We have been assured by our local and our state advisors that there’s not going to be an issue with the post office,” she said, acknowledging that there has been lots of discussion about the postal service nationwide.
The mailing process includes an Arizona-based vendor that prints the ballots, who will drop them at a postal facility in Albuquerque on Oct. 12. Percell expects the ballots to take three to four days to arrive at voters’ addresses.
“They’re going to do whatever it takes — just like we are — to get those ballots in at a timely manner and get them counted,” she said.
Percell said in previous elections, local postal workers have even delivered ballots to her office that were received just before the polling deadlines. However, she recommended voters mail their ballots back to her office at least eight days before the election, because they must transit through Albuquerque before returning to Cortez to be counted. That amount of time is no different than what has been recommended in previous elections, she said.
For voters who choose not to return their ballots by mail, 24-hour drop boxes will be open in Cortez, Towaoc, Mancos and Dolores just before the election. Voter service and polling centers will also be open in those towns on Election Day, where voters can request a new ballot, drop their existing ballots, and register to vote on that same day.
Percell is also confident about the security of the upcoming election. Despite President Donald Trump’s unfounded claims that mail elections lead to widespread voter fraud, Percell says Montezuma County has seen very few problems with its ballots. The most recent election, in April, had only three ballots rejected.
Ballots are usually rejected for a voter having voted twice or if they are improperly signed, she said, but her office has safeguards designed to verify and correct those issues.
“It’s our policy that whenever we receive a ballot, the first one we receive is the first one that counts,” she said. “If any other ballots have been assigned to that person … we automatically void out the second ballot when the first ballot has been received.”
The office also works with the district attorney to investigate such issues, since voting twice is against the law, she said. The other issue, improper signature verification, is usually an accident, she said. It happens most often when a married couple puts their ballots in the wrong envelopes.
“If your signature doesn’t match, we do notify you immediately that that’s the situation, and then you have up until eight days after the election to come in and verify that signature, and that ballot would be counted,” she said.
In general, Percell said this year’s election season feels different than in previous years due to the higher-than-usual tension in American politics.
“It feels like the county, and the country, is divided … and there’s a lot of mistrust in what we do,” she said, expressing her frustration that the national conversation had contributed to that mistrust.
“We’ve worked so hard for the last seven years to establish that trust,” she said. “It just feels unfair to me, because we have worked so hard for it.”
She encouraged anyone with questions or concerns about the election process to reach out to her office via phone or email.
“The best that we can do is try to inform and educate the voters as to what the Colorado voting process is,” she said.
The deadline to register to vote in the upcoming election and still receive a ballot by mail is Oct. 26, and further information and deadlines are posted on the Montezuma County website. Percell also reminded voters to verify the status of their registration at govotecolorado.gov.
