Crested Butte council asks staff to figure out voting roll purge process

A postcard could be in your future

The Crested Butte Town Council has instructed the staff to review its voting rolls and make them as accurate as possible without spending any more significant time or money on the issue. The council wants the town clerk to come up with a written process and keep the council informed on how the issue is being addressed.

The situation began last month when Glenn Michel, town councilman, expressed some concern to staff that voters no longer living in the town received Crested Butte ballots last election. On that ballot was a proposal to increase sales tax in Crested Butte. That measure failed by three votes.
The Gunnison Country Times ran two front-page stories on the matter and the Crested Butte staff felt compelled to gather information on the issue. The Colorado Municipal League and a private attorney were consulted and town manager Todd Crossett told the council the issue of cleaning up the voter rolls could be complex.
“We’ve gathered a lot of information,” Crossett said. “There is no reason to panic or start throwing around accusations. That said, our recommendation is to identify a process to clean up the voter rolls and make them as accurate as they can be. We will address the issue but not make it a bigger issue than it is.”
Crossett and town attorney John Belkin recommended to the council at the Tuesday, January 20 council meeting that Crested Butte town clerk Lynelle Stanford communicate with the county clerk to discuss procedures to check the voter rolls. They suggested she should then come up with an official process to check the names on the rolls to make sure the listed voters are eligible. If not, in conjunction with the county clerk, they should be purged. The council would then be informed of the process and kept in the loop on how the rolls would be as accurate as possible.
Councilman Jim Schmidt was “troubled” that the town had already spent significant time and money on the issue. ”We’ve spent more money on this already than we need to,” he said. “It seems pretty simple. We don’t want people who don’t live in town to vote in our elections. We can send postcards to everyone on the voter list asking them to not vote if they don’t legally live in town. I don’t want to hire more lawyers over this.” He then ran through several plausible scenarios where someone who shouldn’t get a town ballot might receive one.
Belkin said consulting a lawyer when the issue was first broached was “prudent.” He didn’t think it would be necessary to hire more attorneys.
Crossett said the county elections office was interested in working with the town to try to clean up the rolls. He and Belkin said the solution could be as simple as the postcard idea.
“Looking over and purging the rolls is part of good practice on the part of the clerk’s office,” said Belkin. “It’s an administrative issue. The clerks should solve the problem if there is one.”
“We don’t even know if there is really a problem. There are just allegations,” said Crested Butte mayor Aaron Huckstep. “I too don’t want to spend a lot more money on this. It’s not a black-and-white issue.”
“This is one of our biggest issues as an elected body,” countered Michel. “This is a really big deal for me. We’re elected by the people of Crested Butte and that’s who we represent. I disagree that we shouldn’t spend money for good legal advice.”
“Sure, it’s important to have accurate voter rolls, but we all have to act responsibly up here. We can’t go down a rabbit hole,” said Huckstep. “I don’t think most of us see this as a substantial problem.”
“It’s a noble objective to have perfect voter rolls. So is world peace,” said councilman Chris Ladoulis.
“We need to fight for the people of Crested Butte. That’s our job,” said Michel.
“We shouldn’t blindly pursue something without knowing the costs,” said Ladoulis.
“It’s the staff’s job to address it. For us to sit up here and philosophize has zero value,” said councilperson Skip Berkshire.
The issue has been seen in other resort communities that have transient populations. Crossett felt the voter SNAFU falls into three categories: there are people who look like they aren’t qualified town voters but are; there are people who move out of town but don’t change the voter registration information; and there are those interested in committing voter fraud. “That last group is really, really rare,” he said.
“I think part of the issue here is that some of the council and staff were caught off-guard with this issue,” said Huckstep. “Playing catch-up is always difficult. That’s why there is some skepticism from some people on the council.”
The council agreed to let the town clerk and staff communicate with the county and come up with a formal process to attempt to purge the Crested Butte voting rolls of ineligible voters. The staff will report back to council with the plan at the next meeting in an effort to keep them in the loop.