DENVER — There are 3,415 special districts in the state and for many of them, Election Day is Tuesday.
Special districts include fire protection, water and parks and recreation.
Voters in some of those districts have reached out with concerns about their Tuesday election.
Jim, from Lyons, emailed Next with Kyle Clark concerned about the voter affidavit he had to sign for his Lyons Fire Protection District ballot.
The Lyons Fire Protection District is asking voters for a property tax increase. For every $100,000 of property value, the property tax would increase about $36.
The voter affidavit that has to be signed essentially states that the voter is:
- A military or overseas voter
- U.S. Citizen, at least 18 years old.
- Not convicted of a felony that has disqualified their voting rights
- My signature is legit and of my own volition.
Jim is not in the military or overseas and is concerned that signing his ballot envelope would result in perjury.
"I've had a lot of calls and talked to a lot of people to correct the problem," said Lyons Fire Protection District Chief Peter Zick.
Zick said the voter affidavit language came straight from the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act.
Pretty much when mail ballots were only by military and overseas voters, not everyone.
"We had to correct it. We put on our website, as you can see, if you're uncomfortable signing it and it doesn't apply to you, you can strike out number one," said Zick.
On the district's website and social media are posts explaining that voters can cross off number one and still sign the ballot envelope. They can also return the ballot in person, but still need to sign the ballot envelope.
Because of the affidavit concern, Lyons Fire Protection District will accept the ballots in person delivered to Ella between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. on Friday and Monday. On Tuesday, she will be there from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
"We've been extraordinarily diligent about people coming to the fire station. If Ella's not here, we turn them away and say, 'Hey, you have to come here and hand them to Ella.' We don't take them, we don't handle them, we don’t' do anything," said Zick. "We haven't gotten any ballots that aren't signed."
Paul, from Arvada, emailed Next with Kyle Clark about a concern that his vote was being tracked.
His ballot in the Vauxmont Metropolitan District, for the Candelas neighborhood in Arvada, arrived with a ballot number in the corner. That same ballot number appears on his ballot envelope twice.
"If there is any way that the special district is tracking that number to a voter, that could be a big problem," said Colorado County Clerks Association Executive Director Matt Crane.
Crane, the former Republican Arapahoe County Clerk, said that city and county clerks do not run special district elections.
"Their rules are much less rigid than what we have, say, at the county level. We'd like to see them tighten up some of their rules around that, to provide more integrity to the process," said Crane.
According to the company that runs the Vauxmont Metropolitan District election, the ballot numbers do not track how people vote.
The printer uses the ballot numbers to tie the correct ballot to correct elector. When the ballot is envelope is received, it is checked for a signature. If it has a signature, the ballot is removed. Once the ballot is removed, the tab across the top, with the ballot number, is torn off and discarded. From that point on the ballot is anonymous and cannot be traced back to a specific voter.
One major difference between local and county elections and special district elections. Local and county elections verify that the voter signature matches the signature on the voter's file. Special district elections only look to see that a ballot envelope has been signed.