Bipartisan board votes to certify Boulder County's 2021 election results
Nov. 23—A post-election Canvass Board voted unanimously Monday afternoon to certify the results that the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office's had reached about the votes cast in the county's 2021 coordinated election.
Approving the report, which now will be forwarded to the Colorado Secretary of State's Office, were Lynne McNamara, a Boulder County Democratic Party representative, Joseph Green, a Boulder County Republican Party representative and Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick, a Democrat.
"On behalf of the Boulder County Elections staff and the well over 100 community members who served as election judges to carry out an accurate and secure election, I am pleased that our canvass meeting went smoothly and that the board certified the election results," Fitzpatrick said in a Monday evening statement.
Green had several questions for the county Elections Division staffers during their detailed presentation of the results — a presentation that included details of the post-election procedures and reviews taken to ascertain that the number of votes being reported as having been counted did not exceed the numbers of votes actually cast.
While Republicans on Boulder County's Canvass Boards have refused, a number of times during the past decade, to agree with certifying the results, Green did not dissent in the Monday Canvass Board vote to approve the certification of the 2021 election, which included three statewide ballot issues, a number of city council and school board contests and several municipal or special district ballot questions.
McNamara said during the meeting that the county clerk's staff's responses to Green's questions verified the importance of "the processes that are in place" to ensure the accuracy of tallying and reporting the election results.
She said people want such assurances that election outcomes haven't been fraudulent or that the system has allowed someone to vote twice.
Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Kopes said in a Monday afternoon email that her office's Elections Department had concluded its post-election reviews and Canvass Board certification of the results on Nov. 18. The members of that county's board — a Democrat, Republican Kopes and another Republican — also voted their unanimous approval of the Weld report.
Broomfield posted its official election results on Nov. 17.
The Boulder County Clerk's Elections Division said in a Monday night news release that its office's final official results now posted online include a "Statement of Votes, a document that shows precinct-by-precinct results for each contest. The Statement of Votes will be forwarded to the Colorado Secretary of State's office as part of the election close out process."
Last week, the Boulder County elections staff and a bipartisan Audit Board — including five Democratic Party appointed members and five Republican Party appointed members — successfully completed the Boulder County portion of the statewide Risk-Limiting Audit.
That's a post-election audit that provides citizens with evidence that election results tabulated by the voting system reflect the actual votes cast by voters. The process reviews how a ballot's votes were captured at the time it was processed by the voting system by comparing the actual physical ballots with the digital tallies captured at the time of ballot processing.
Elections staff also completed the overall "reconciliation process." last week, providing the data and information needed for the Canvass Board to certify that the number of votes counted is equal to or less than the number of ballots cast and that the number of ballots cast is equal to or less than the number of eligible voters. That Reconciliation Report is also available online.
Boulder County Canvass Board member Green, an Erie resident, said in a Monday night interview that the board's work was "kind of rounding out my experience" with the election because he also participated in a pre-election "logic and accuracy" testing of the county's paper ballots and its ballot processing equipment.
Green said about the election procedures and processes: "I think all in all, it was run pretty tight."
Longmont resident McNamara said in a Monday night interview that her personal experiences, which have included serving as an elections judge as well as a Canvass Board member, have shown her how "incredible" Boulder County's election officials are in making thorough efforts to ensure the rules and regulations and laws are being followed by volunteers and temporary elections staff as well as the office's full-time staff.
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More information
Boulder County official election results and post-election canvass documents: bouldercounty.org/elections/results
Weld County official election results: tinyurl.com/5hua6u37
Broomfield official election results: tinyurl.com/vbwb5h63
