As of late Wednesday afternoon, Chaffee County Clerk and Recorder Lori Mitchell notes that her office will tabulate more ballots after the eight-day cure period. Then it will move on to the state’s required risk-limiting audit.
Chaffee Clerk and Recorder Lori Mitchell. Photo by Dan Smith
The Clerk and Recorders office held 28 ballots in reserve, and in addition to that number, over the next eight days, it will continue to receive cured ballots, as well as military ballots and ballots that were dropped off in another county before 7:00 p.m. on Election Day. Mitchell reported that her office received a few of those ballots on Wednesday, that were dropped off in the wrong county.
Mitchell has announced that from the total number of ballots that need to be cured for missing or discrepant signatures (approx.30), a total of zero are in Ward 2.
As of late Wednesday, there remain 40 known ballots to run; including the 28 held in reserve, and fewer than 10 remaining ballots are in the extremely close race in Salida Ward 2 between Adriane Kuhn and Aaron Stephens.
Mitchell has made a point of commending all the candidates, saying, “I know how hard it is to run for office. I want to thank you all for stepping up. Local elections are very important.”
She gave another big shoutout “to our Election Judges and my incredible staff. We received and processed over 3,000 mail ballots on Election Day as well as servicing in-person voters at two locations. Our turnout will be over 60 percent and the statewide turnout will be around 40 percent. That is something we all can be proud of.”
Thank you for the specifics regarding Ward 2. I was wondering how many ballots that may affect this race were being held out as Clerk Mitchell described.
Jan, thanks for your great article on BV’s fantastic election turn out! I was predicting to everybody I know that this would be what I call a “hot” election.
I was particularly impressed by the quality of our school board candidates. I haven’t seen a group of people as dedicated to education run for the board of education in many years.
Prop HH and 6a (the addition to our public library) are definitely the types of issues that generates lots of votes, pro and con. To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, we’re back to being “a government of the people, by the people and for the people,” ruled by a majority vote.
Gary E. Goms
Buena Vista