The grand jury report on the Saguache County 2010 General Election was released Tuesday afternoon by the State Attorney General’s Office but no indictments were returned in the investigation. The report relates that Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers did admit during her testimony that she failed to follow the Secretary of State (SOS) rules during the election.
In commentary submitted to the grand jury following its decision, Myers stated that she was “encouraged to see the conclusions so well explained and hope that we can finally put this election to rest.”
The report gave special weight to the actions of the SOS in the investigation of election irregularities and the accompanying statements made by Election Systems and Software (ES&S) concerning the operation of the M650 voting machine.
The grand jury felt that the involvement of the SOS and ES&S were factors that discouraged indictments from being issued in their consideration of the case.
During a visit to Del Norte in late April Attorney General John Suthers said that the grand jury could elect to issue a report on the matter, with or without an indictment.
But according to statutes governing grand juries in Colorado: “In any case in which a grand jury does not return an indictment, the grand jury may prepare or ask to be prepared a report of its findings if the grand jury determines that preparation and release of a report would be in the public interest as described in subsection (5) of this section.
“The determination to prepare and release a report pursuant to this section must be made by an affirmative vote of at least the number of jurors that would have been required to return an indictment.
Full Article: Valley Courier No indictments issued in Saguache election.