Pueblo County elections department set to move to Wells Fargo building. Here's why

The Pueblo County elections department is getting new digs.

Before the end of June, the office will move across the intersection from its rented office space at the corner of Eighth Street and Sante Fe Avenue into the Wells Fargo building.

The county elections department, which is one of three departments under the jurisdiction of Clerk and Recorder Candace Rivera, has rented office space at 720 Santa Fe Ave. for approximately 15 years, according to Pueblo County spokesperson Adam Uhernik.

The current space isn’t big enough to support all of the office's operations, and not all of its equipment is on the same floor, Rivera said.

If the clerk’s office didn’t plan a move soon, the next-soonest time it would be able transfer operations to another locale would be January 2025, Rivera said. Three elections are planned throughout the presidential election year of 2024.

The county is receiving additional equipment from Dominion Voting Systems, including an additional tabulating machine, which will speed up the process for counting and reporting ballots after 7 p.m. on Election Day.

The move to the new building is timed well because the office's lease on its current space is up and state law passed last year specifies a June 30 deadline for officials to implement a key-card access system to all voting equipment.

The move to the new office — which is diagonal across the intersection from the current one — and obtaining new equipment is costing approximately $500,000, which comes from the county’s general fund, Board of County Commissioners Chairman Garrison Ortiz said.

The cost is higher than initially expected, but “when you talk about just the security and timeliness of elections, it's pretty hard to put a price on that,” Ortiz said.

Moving the office's Agilis sorting machine alone will cost approximately $12,000.

Ortiz said the county owning its own office space, an effort he’s prioritized during his time on the BOCC, will save the county money in the long run.

What's the plan for the rest of the Wells Fargo building?

The renovations to the seventh floor of the Wells Fargo building are not extensive: No walls are being knocked down, but some are receiving a fresh coat of paint. New IT infrastructure is being added to support the office's operations.

Pueblo County purchased the building in 2020 for $5.2 million. The building has still housed some tenants since the purchase, but many of its floors have been largely unoccupied.

Ortiz said other governmental agencies from the county and city could move into the building eventually.

The first floor of the building will be the site of a “one-stop shop” area for Pueblo Means Business — which seeks to streamline the business permitting process in the city and county — for which Ortiz said the county plans to host a ribbon cutting before the end of 2023.

Anna Lynn Winfrey covers politics for the Chieftain. She can be reached at awinfrey@gannett.com or on Twitter, @annalynnfrey.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: Pueblo County elections department moving into Wells Fargo building