Flaws found in voter drive mailings to Colorado women

By Myung Oak Kim, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published October 15, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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Photo by Javier Manzano / The Rocky

Elections commission official James Flanagan looks over voter registration forms with Democratic oversight member Barry Sarver at the Denver Elections Division offices Tuesday, as groups sent observers to check on the mechanics of Colorado's election.

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A national women's voter registration organization has sent thousands of applications to Colorado residents with bad addresses on the return envelopes and other flaws.

The mistakes by the Voter Participation Center could cause people to think that they are registered to vote when they are not or to wait for a mail ballot that will never arrive.

The center is a project of Women's Voices Women Vote, which is trying to get more unmarried women on the voter rolls. It is one of several groups that have mounted drives that have flooded election offices with voting or mail ballot forms.

Women's Voices did four waves of voter registration mailings to Colorado between November 2007 and last August. Each wave involved anywhere between 105,000 and 246,000 applications, said President Page Gardner. More than 33,000 were filled out and sent to elections offices.

But thousands of forms included return envelopes addressed to the secretary of state's office instead of the proper county clerk's office, said spokesman Richard Coolidge. State workers had to send them to the right place, he said.

Another problem: Forms were sent to women who had died.

"People were saying, 'My wife has been dead for 10 years.' People were saying, 'This looks bad. Something's wrong here,' " Coolidge said.

Jack Arrowsmith, clerk and recorder for Douglas County, said he received complaints earlier this year about the mailings. He said the former county clerk received a form using her maiden name.

The most recent mailing blitz involved 280,000 mail ballot applications, Gardner said. Four percent of those - or more than 11,000 forms - included the wrong county clerk's address on the return envelope, she said.

According to Gardner, the mistake happened because some recipients live in ZIP codes that straddle two counties. In such cases, the mailing house used the county with the most residents on the return envelope, she said. The group will send corrected forms to these people.

Gardner said any other mistakes - such as forms sent to deceased women - were because of mistakes in voter files.

Coolidge said Women's Voices is not using current voter files from his office.

"If you receive any mailings that you find to be misleading, or if you are confused about the mailings, contact your county clerk and recorder or the secretary of state's office," he said.

Mail ballots by the numbers

1,401,213 ballots mailed to voters

70,369 ballots filled out, returned

30,717 ballots received Tuesday

59 cents for your 2 cents

Remember to put at least two stamps on your mail ballot.

That's the message from county clerks and postal authorities. The lengthy, multiple-page ballot costs an average of 59 cents to send by mail.

In Denver, it's $1.17.

But if you've already mailed your ballot without enough postage, don't fret. The Postal Service will deliver it.

The Postal Service said the record high mail voting in Colorado is going smoothly so far. But it wants voters to mail ballots no later than Nov. 1. After that, drop off your ballot at your county election office, said spokesman Al DeSarro.

To check your mail ballot status, or your overall voter status, call 303-894-2200 or go to govotecolorado.com.

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