Delays by the U.S. Postal Service trapped some El Paso County election ballots in a cycle between Denver and Colorado Springs this month, with some ballots reaching voters days after they were sent. Issues with barcoding delayed roughly 10,000 ballots statewide, and prompted Secretary of State Wayne Williams on Tuesday to issue a plea to voters to not drop their mail-in ballots in a Postal Service box, less they get lost in a similar cycle. The El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office joined the state by instructing voters to bring their ballots straight to the ballot box to make sure they get counted. But a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service said on Tuesday that voters should have no concerns about dropping their completed ballots in the mail. Spokesman David Rupert said that the delays were minor, and ultimately millions of ballots were delivered on time – a statistic that bodes well for return ballots, he added.
“We had 2.9 million ballots that were mailed that week, and we can ascertain that 99.97 percent of those were delivered on time,” Rupert said on Tuesday. “I would call that a tremendous success.”
The delays came after nine months of work with the Postal Service to perfect the ballot send-out on Oct. 12 – Columbus Day, said Ryan Parsell, a spokesman for the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office.
Full Article: County clerks worry about mail-ballot delays, urge voters to use dropoff boxes.