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Postal Service cites vote problems

Trouble stems from mail ballots

Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 23, 2007 at midnight

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The Postal Service sent a letter of complaint to the Colorado secretary of state's office last week about problems with the envelopes and the voter addresses used for the mail-in ballots in Denver's special election this month.

"Unfortunately, Denver city and county did not provide the communication needed to achieve success," wrote Dean J. Granholm, district manager for customer service and sales with the Postal Service.

"They did not send any information regarding the date of the election, volume of the mailing, the design of the absentee ballot envelopes, the final packet or the actual date of mailing until it was too late to make any needed changes."

Granholm also said the voter lists were not updated and that more than 17,600 absentee ballots were returned as undeliverable as addressed.

The letter to Secretary of State Mike Coffman, which was dated Friday, also blasted Sequoia, the company that Denver used to print the ballots and envelopes.

Coffman's office sent a letter dated Monday to John Gaydeski, the executive director of the Denver Election Commission, asking for a meeting between representatives of the commission, the Postal Service and the secretary of state's office to sort out the issues that Granholm raised.

Spokesman Alton Dillard said the commission "is aware of the letter and will meet with USPS officials when time allows. These are the kinds of issues that can occur when turning around an election in three weeks."

Denver Councilwoman Rosemary Rodriguez, who has been tracking the woes of the Denver Election Commission, said she was "really, really unhappy" to learn of the problems with the ballots . "I asked the election commission and Sequoia to give me a response by noon tomorrow," she said.

Meanwhile, former Denver Election Commissioner Jan Tyler also filed a complaint in Denver district Court on Monday seeking to halt the special election because she had learned that ballots had been returned to the Denver Election Commission as undeliverable.