Today the election countdown, visible on every page of Ark Valley Voice, says we have 83 days until the November 7, 2023, coordinated election. Candidate petitions are circulating. Soon we’ll know who the candidates are in the upcoming elections and will begin assessing their credentials.
Click that logo on the page, and you can register to vote in Chaffee County. Our local election officials have made it as easy as possible to register to vote, just as they have made it easy to track our ballots once we vote, to know where in the process the vote is.
But certain local individuals, known both formally as HICCUP (Honesty in Chaffee County Under Protest) as well as regular citizens, appear to have formalized their opposition to Colorado and Chaffee County election processes. That their comments began shortly after a Chaffee Patriots session, featuring prominent election fraud conspiracist David Clements, in which he incited attendees to cause election chaos and challenge people and processes, may be no accident.
Over the past few weeks, at every public meeting of the Chaffee Board of County Commissioner (BoCC), these individuals have made comments as if the BoCC control the county clerk and recorder — or the election.
Chaffee County Clerk Lori Mitchell takes her oath of office from Judge Alderton in 2018. Photo by Jan Wondra.
They do not. The Chaffee County Clerk and Recorder is a duly elected official who does not report to the BoCC. She runs her own office. In Colorado, the county clerk is the county’s designated election official. Period.
“I’m here to begin a workup for our 2024 elections, said Buena Vista resident Alan Seeling during a BoCC meeting a few weeks ago. It was not his first appearance.
That time, he handed the BoCC copies of U.S. HR3295, the Help American Vote Act of 2002, passed in the wake of the 2000 election of hanging chads in Florida, saying — “so as we go forward into our elections, you know what you have to do. I’d like the county clerk to give us a cost for a hard copy, hand-count ballot for our upcoming elections. There’s no state requirement, but it might be good to have those costs on hand.”
During public comment on August 15, Jerry Raski referenced his HICCUP organization saying that a recent Ark Valley Voice article about his group confirmed that his mission actually supports democracy and he asked for donations to continue his oversight of county elections.
But instead of democracy, the fact is it would seem the group focuses on the harassment of the County Clerk’s office with a flood of CORA requests (Colorado Open Records Requests) and mounting legal actions. This could be seen as a mission devoted to lobbying or wearing down an election process and planting distrust in our election staff and processes, where distrust is not deserved.
Last week resident Lynne Drogosz, an election judge, said she had had enough.
“Are you aware that our county clerk has been getting disparaged during some of these public comments? I am an election judge. I have never in my life seen such a well-run election. [Mitchell] and her team have been professional, and non-partisan, from the time you pick up a ballot in BV, there is always a Republican, Democrat, or unaffiliated voter there. There are so many eyes on ballots. Those ballots are picked up, brought down here [to Salida].”
“There are Republicans there — including former Republican Committee Chair Cathy Rodgers — and they are in sync with [Mitchell] every step of the way,” she added. “It’s unfair that she has to be under this pressure – she is elected by all the people in this county. She goes all over the country helping to train election workers. She doesn’t deserve this treatment.”
For the first time in the past weeks of non-factual public comments about the county clerk’s office, the commissioners weighed in.
“All of us up here have the utmost confidence in the clerk and her team, most of whom grew up here,” said Commissioner Keith Baker. “Lori’s sister worked in the sheriff’s office for many years. She graduated from high school here – she’s highly regarded in her field and was the president of the Colorado Clerk’s Association for a number of years. Colorado’s election process is the gold standard for the country. Any state that wants fair elections … all they need to do is straight line our system. Everybody I know of involved in our elections has the highest integrity.”
“We’ve spent considerable time reviewing and researching procedures and protocols. I remain convinced this country has the best election systems in the world, Colorado has the best state process, and Chaffee County has one of the best protocols in the state,” said Commissioner Greg Felt. “We’re starting at a very high place. My conversations with Lori confirm she is both vigilant and diligent. I stand with her.”
On Tuesday morning, August 15, resident Sig Jaastad rose and put the following message into the record:
“Mr. Chairman, Commissioner Felt and Wood, I rise to express my support for and supreme confidence in the truth, honesty, and justice rendered by Chaffee County Clerk and Recorder Lori Mitchell. Clerk Mitchell represents the gold standard in the provision of honest, open, and fair elections. We are fortunate to have Mitchell as our clerk/recorder.”
Editor’s note: Editor Jan Wondra has covered elections in several Colorado counties and municipalities. Journalists at Ark Valley Voice have had a solid professional relationship with Mitchell. We receive regular press releases from her office as election processes proceed. As soon as voting commences, we receive daily voting records from the Clerk and Recorders Office recounting every person who voted that day (we have always done daily reports to the public from these recaps). Mitchell reviews the processes with us, she is available to answer our questions on behalf of the public and we have witnessed her representing the Colorado election process at many events.
Let’s analyze the Wendy Hall condemnation of “repeating theories that are not representative of how the majority of Chaffee County Residents feel”. This is the least progressive statement I have ever heard.
It is fortunate that our predecessors who risked their lives to fight against racism and for women’s rights did not just shrug and give up. After all, at that time the majority “feeling” was that slavery was great, and suffragettes were uppity. What kind of stagnant society are you advocating, in which the minority is not allowed to question the majority? Or does this rule only apply when Wendy Hall is in the majority?
And while the majority is busy enforcing how they “feel” on the minority, where is there room for fact-finding to determine the objective truth? Or is the truth irrelevant?
If as you say there is no problem with our elections, then any effort to prove otherwise will fail. Why not let it?
All of the hysterical shrieking and demands that investigation not be allowed is a clear admission there is something to hide.
Vince, Some 67 courts examined the “evidence” (or lack thereof) presented and dismissed the claims of election fraud. Attempting to equate the conspiracy almost foisted on the American public that would have disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of voters if it had succeeded, would have been the real fraud. At this point only a cult mindset of an authoritarian nightmare insists that the Trump conspiracy won.
Nobody ever worried about the security of our elections until the Liar In Chief showed up and began spreading his lies about election theft, basically pre-excusing his potential loss in 2016.
Trump lost the popular vote in 2016, but won the electoral college. Republicans lost in 2018, lost the Presidency and Senate in 2020, and lost again in 2022. If it wasn’t for gerrymandering, republicans would have lost even more races.
The fact is that you don’t need to cheat when one candidate is so awful that many people would vote for nearly anyone else, but republicans prefer to lie to themselves about a vast conspiracy instead of admitting to themselves that they’re out of step with the majority of Americans, and I am sick of listening to them lie to themselves and then using those lies as justification for them to do whatever they damn well please.
I am really pleased to hear that the Commissioners are taking a strong stand in support of Chaffee’s Clerk & Recorder. Can the same few people continually sign-up to make public comment over and over and over, repeating theories that are NOT representative of how the majority of Chaffee residents feel? I don’t believe this group has strong support or following. At some point, can the Commissioners just say “we are clear about your beliefs and concerns, but do not feel action is necessary on our part, and we’d like to spend less time on this topic?” On a factual note, there had never been a question about the integrity of Colorado’s election process, until Trump began stating that, “If I lose, the election was rigged.” If he won, it was a fair election. If he lost, the election was rigged, even if other Republicans down-ballot were elected! Yes, the hanging chads were an issue in FLA in 2000 (PAPER ballots by the way); the legal process was explored, and after a time, Al Gore conceded the election. Hillary Clinton conceded her race the NEXT MORNING. Historically, there is nothing like the outrageous claims invented by Trump and now still being carried by his followers, whose candidate lost the election. After many, many legal challenges and recounts, it’s been firmly and clearly decided that there was no election fraud. This is literally beating a dead horse.