County wants to talk about voter rolls

But town hasn’t responded…

by Mark Reaman

The Crested Butte Town Council agreed on Tuesday to enter into an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the county to try to clean up the town voter rolls.

Despite some hesitation over indemnification language submitted by the county as part of the agreement, the two government entities will begin a postcard campaign to voters registered in the north end of the valley.

While many people use post office boxes in the town of Crested Butte to receive mail, and thus election ballots, they physically live outside town limits and so cannot legally vote in town elections. But there is concern that some non-residents nonetheless do vote in the town elections.

So the postcards and a public information campaign will be launched to try to get people to do the right thing and register their physical address in the correct precinct.

County officials, including county attorney David Baumgarten, county clerk Kathy Simillion and county elections supervisor Diane Folowell have said they reached out numerous times this past week to Crested Butte to set up a face-to-face meeting with the council to explain their role in the process and discuss how the integrity of the elections can be maintained.

They said that numerous phone calls to the town manager’s office were not returned. The idea of a meeting is for the election partners to discuss and understand what can and cannot be done under the state regulations covering elections and voter rolls.

Town manager Todd Crossett said Wednesday he would reach out to the county officials this week to try and find a time that works for a meeting.

Town councilman Skip Berkshire stressed at Tuesday’s council meeting that he was not placing blame on the county for the situation but felt the county should take the lead in rectifying the issue. Councilman Jim Schmidt said that burden should fall on the state, which mandated mail-in ballots and led to the local situation.

The county officials would still like to meet with the council to iron out the situation but have not heard back from the town staff about the offer. “Should such a meeting become available, we would politely provide our guidance, and suggest to the council that the best solutions to the issue of the Town voter roll may reside exclusively with the council,” concluded Baumgarten.