Ballots from 84 voters in Jefferson County were tossed out as election officials finalized results from the 2020 General Election.

Three ballots in that batch of rejects were sent to the Jefferson County Prosecutor’s Office for further action, but members of the Jefferson County Canvassing Board indicated they did not think that trio of voters were intentionally trying to vote more than once in this year’s election.

The 2020 election has been scrutinized like no other in recent history, with President Donald Trump continuing to falsely claim the vote was “rigged” and Republicans filing lawsuits across multiple states in a failing effort to hand Trump a second term.

In Jefferson County, turnout hit 90.04 percent — second in the state only to San Juan County, which reported a turnout of 90.76 last week.

Jefferson County officials said early voting allowed elections staff to tally 20,527 votes on Election Day; or 82.2 percent of all ballots cast. 

Overall, ballots were counted from 24,948 registered voters in Jefferson County.

“It was great; it was wonderful, I really couldn’t be more happy,” said Jefferson County Election Coordinator Quinn Grewell. “It just went so smooth, especially during a pandemic.”

“For it being my first presidential election, I was super stoked it went well; everything went so well,” she said.

The Jefferson County Canvassing Board met early last week to review 87 ballots that had been challenged and were referred to the board.

The board immediately rejected 10 of the ballots because they were postmarked after Nov. 3, Election Day.

Another 40 were tossed because voters did not put their signature on the return envelope that comes with mail-in ballots.

Each canvassing board member then reviewed each ballot — one at a time — out of a batch of 31 that had questionable signatures; signatures that did not match voter signatures on file. 

The majority of the
31 ballots were quickly dispatched by the canvassing board, made up of County Commissioner Greg Brotherton, Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Philip Hunsucker, and Chief Deputy Auditor Brenda Huntingford.

At one end of the conference room on the second floor of the Jefferson County Courthouse, Grewell set two trays: a green one for accepted ballots, and a red one for rejects.

For each contested ballot, board members compared the ballot return envelope with its signature, and another page with the person’s voting record that displayed their signature that was on file.

Board members offered their quick takes on why the signatures matched or didn’t.

On some, it was the assessment that a voter’s signature had changed over time.

For others, it was simply sloppiness.

“This is a tough one. It looks like someone has gotten old,” Brotherton said as he examined a questionable signature. “I’ll go ‘No.’”

The others agreed, and it was on to the next challenged ballot. 

Holding up the sixth questionable one, Brotherton noted, “I will attest it’s hard to do a capital G consistently.”

“Mine is consistently bad,” Grewell offered.

Brotherton asked to see the envelope, and a quick “no” followed.

On the next ballot, Huntingford said it was signed in a way that “looks like a whole different last name.”

It went into the rejection tray.

More would follow, with some signatures being far from similar.

“C’mon, man!” Hunsucker exclaimed when comparing two side-by-side signatures, drawing a laugh from those in the room.

Grewell told board members that the county made attempts to contact people who had ballots that were being challenged, to give them a chance to verify their signatures.

Some phone numbers from registration forms were no longer in use, and Grewell noted that people often seem to change phones these days, but fewer still keep their numbers updated.

Another return envelope prompted a chuckle from the board, which apparently had a doodle on the signature line, rather than a signature.

It was summarily slapped down.

“It’s a nice landscape, though,” Brotherton said.

“That’s another one of the ‘C’mon on!’ category,” Hunsucker added.

Nearing the end of the contested ballots, and another pair of signatures that didn’t line up, Hunsucker looked at the signatures upside down, and then saw enough similarities to accept the ballot.

Brotherton tried the same technique.

“That G is very similar. I’ll go ‘yes,’ too,” he said.

The next ballot was referred to the prosector’s office, and fell into the “Other Than Voter” category. 

Grewell said it appeared the voter signed and submitted their own ballot, then also signed a household member’s ballot with their signature.

Brotherton said it appeared to be an inadvertent mistake, and Hunsucker agreed that a warning letter from the prosecutor would be the likely result of a referral.

Another ballot was rejected and referred to the prosecutor for the same reason; signed by a household member who also cast a ballot.

One provisional ballot was accepted by the board.

A voter sent in a ballot return envelope but not the ballot; a provisional ballot was cast instead, which was accepted by the board.

One case was reviewed of a person who voted twice.

The first ballot sent in was unsigned, so the voter went online, got a new ballot issued, and cast the new one, as well.

The board decided to reject the unsigned ballot, but to count the one that was sent with a signature later.

After 45 minutes, the board had finished its review of all contested ballots.

Grewell told the board that voters had been especially engaged during this election cycle. People tracked their ballots online to make sure they had been received.

“We had less challenges this election; people were right on top of things,” she said.

“I’m glad people were paying attention to the rules,” Brotherton said.

The call volume was high through the election period, and three people were still waiting to vote at 8 p.m. on Election Night. They were flagged as eligible to vote, Grewell said.

Grewell noted that processing ballots was made much easier this year due to a Mail Ballot Verifier that was acquired by the county; it’s a machine that captures and stores images of ballot return envelopes and their signatures.

“It streamlines our process, for one, and it eliminates some of the handling of those ballots,” Grewell said.