The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Everyone gets a mail-in ballot
The Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte town councils got an overview of the changes being made to the state’s election law, including a new rule that chops a week off the residency requirement for voting, to 22 days.
County election officials Kathy Simillion and Diane Folowell attended both council meetings on Tuesday, August 6 to talk to the towns about House Bill 1303, the Voter Access and Modernized Elections Act, and the changes brought about by the law that would affect them.
Before the law was enacted this year, municipalities could hold their own elections to choose town council candidates and decide local issues, but that’s changed. Now, if a town holds an election at the same time as a general or coordinated election in November, HB-1303 requires the towns to participate in the state election process.
That won’t have an effect on Mt. Crested Butte elections, which are held in April, and the town of Crested Butte has conducted coordinated elections with the county elections department for several years.
Locally, the number and locations of polling places will also see some changes as a result of the new law. In even-numbered years, when there’s a general election, Simillion explained, there will be only three polling places in the county—at the Blackstock Government Center and the Fred Field Center in Gunnison and, probably, at the Queen of All Saints parish hall in Crested Butte.
On odd-numbered years, for coordinated elections like the one this November, the county will operate only one, re-branded, “Voter Polling Service Center” in the Blackstock Government Center at 211 N. Wisconsin St. in Gunnison, six days a week, with extended voting hours.
With fewer physical locations for people to vote, the new law is requiring the county election office to send a mail-in ballot to every registered voter, even those who didn’t vote in the last election and, under the old law, would have been considered ‘inactive’.
“Within 1303, all active registered voters will automatically receive a ballot by mail,” Simillion said. “Now the law has changed so that anybody to whom we would give an ‘inactive status’ because they had failed to vote has now been changed to active, so those folks will receive a ballot in the mail as well.”
More mail-in ballots means more postage and a higher cost for the election, which the county pays for, with the help the other entities participating in the election. This November, the county will have questions from five other entities and the state on the ballot. “It’s probably going to be a pretty big ballot this year,” said Simillion.
Simillion and Folowell estimate the new rule is going to cost the county at least $10,000 for this year’s coordinated election just to pay for the ballots and mailing alone, in addition to extra judges and new equipment necessary to keep up with the added workload. For next year’s general election, the cost, they said, will likely by between $40,000 and $50,000.
“That’s why the numbers are so inflated right now,” Folowell said. “It’s also increasing the cost for the county and for the state to conduct these elections now, because we’re going to be mailing to about 3,500 more people than we typically do. So you can imagine the increase in postage costs.”
Statewide, Folowell said, one of the most significant changes being brought about in the new law might be the ability of eligible voters to register to vote up to, and including, election day with a valid photo ID and proof that they’ve been a resident of the state for at least 22 days. Prior to HB-1303, residency was granted after 29 days living in Colorado.
“They want to modernize it to make it more accessible for people, but from our standpoint it is kind of opening a floodgate here, especially until we get a couple of elections under our belt,” Folowell said. “It kind of is what it is right now.”
