Denver calls in SWAT officers to finish counting votes
Sara Burnett and David Montero, Rocky Mountain News
Published November 7, 2007 at midnight
Denver has called in the SWAT team and other city workers to finish counting ballots tonight.
About 20 on-call SWAT officers arrived at the election offices after 10 p.m.. Election officials say there are still 17,000 or so ballots to count.
"They will continue to count through the night," said mayoral spokeswoman Sue Cobb.
The election volunteers who had counted ballots all day left for home.
The votes have been counted at a snail's pace all evening, and election officials said earlier this evening they weren't sure whether they would finish.
The city elections office released the latest figures at 9:16 p.m. At that point, they had counted 71,225 ballots. It appears that close to 90,000 Denver residents voted in this election, or about 43 percent - about 10 percent more than election officials had anticipated.
Mayor John Hickenlooper, who was celebrating at Strings restaurant early returns that showed his bond issues passing, was philosophical about the delays, even though Denver's election commission had suffered severe problems counting votes in the last election.
"The one thing about these campaigns is that people put their hearts and souls into it - both for and against - and there's an expectation that you'll go to bed and that's why when Al Gore and George Bush ran in 2000, that's what was so incredible about it was that people went to bed and they didn't know. They didn't know for days. It's part of democracy when you have a close election.
"My guess is, in the end, Stephanie O'Malley is - she is tireless, she's a lawyer, so she knows who they can hire and who they can't. My expectation is she will find a way. If there's a way to be found, she'll find a way to count those votes. Before that sun rises, they'll have those votes counted. Famous last words."
O'Malley is Denver's clerk and recorder, in charge of elections. She was elected in a special balloting after the debacle in counting.
Besides the slow counting, for most of the night, Denver was having
trouble posting the results on its web site.
While the city had promised the initial results from the mail-in
balloting at 7 p.m. — as soon as the polls officially closed
— it was after 8 p.m. before any vote numbers showed up on the
election web site.
Tina Romero, spokeswoman for the Elections Commission, said results could not be posted at 7 p.m. because the server was experiencing problems.
"There was a disconnect between the city's server," she said, adding
that a technical expert was looking at the problem.
At that point, she had said there were no difficulties counting the
ballots.
"The counting is going fine and continuing," Romero said.
At 8:30 p.m., ballots were still arriving from the vote centers.
City officials initially insisted the results were available at 7 p.m., but they did not show up on computers inside the Rocky Mountain News newsroom. A check of computers outside the newsroom showed they weren't available on those either.
Preliminary results were being reported by Denver Channel 8, the
city's cable channel, but those stopped after 8 p.m.
It appeared that the city had counted about 65,000 mail-in ballots by 7
p.m. The remaining ballots had been cast during the day.
Throughout the metro areas, counties were reporting turnout of about
35 percent.
This year's election offered voters a chance to focus almost
exclusively on their own communities, with no statewide candidate races
or ballot issues on the table.
Statewide, 43 counties conducted mail-in ballot elections, according
to the Colorado Secretary of State, a practice that has grown more
popular in recent years because counties say it saves money and raises
voter participation.
In addition, eight counties were using traditional polling places or
vote centers.
Few expect turnout this year to top 40 percent because there were no high-profile ballot issues or contests, such as last year's governor's race, to lure voters.
In 2005, for instance, when voters were asked to decide a major
change in how the state collects and uses their tax dollars, turn out
hit 40.1 percent, even though it was an off year. "That was
unprecedented," said Rich Coolidge, spokesman for the secretary of
state.
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