TRINIDAD — More than one thousand incorrect ballots have been sent out to Trinidad voters. The Las Animas County Clerk and recorder, Karrie Apple, said the wrong ballots were sent out to people who live within the city limits of Trinidad. Those ballots did not include a citywide 2A excise tax question.
News5 sat down with the Las Animas Clerk to ask her how this happened and what they have done to fix it.
"I am going to take responsibility for this,” Apple said.
Earlier this month the Las Animas County Clerk’s office sent out two ballots for the upcoming election. One is for Las Animas County voters and the other is for voters who live in the city of Trinidad. The clerk said they discovered a mistake on the city of Trinidad's ballot.
"It was our error,” Apple said.
There is a blank space where the city ballot measure should have been. The item missing was for Trinidad's ballot issue 2A. It's a tabor question asking for an excise tax increase on lodging. all the ballots that were sent out were county ballots.
"So the ballot, they were. The county ballots were the ones that were initially sent out, instead of the city of Trinidad ballots. So that's the new, corrected one we sent out that will include the Tabor for the city of Trinidad,” Apple said.
The clerk said this happened because of a coding error.
"Our spreadsheet that we use to merge these on our end did not necessarily match what was in Score, which is the program we use to create our ballots,” Apple said.
“Score,” is the state of Colorado's election system. The city ballot label should have said "City of Trinidad," but instead it was coded as "Trinidad out,” meaning the county. Apple said because the label was wrong all the ballots were made as county and did not include the 2A Tabor question.
"So we had a precinct split that was incorrectly coded, and so it caused about 1095 ballots, roughly, that we had to resend out with the corrected ballot style so that the city of Trinidad citizens could actually vote for their tabor,” Apple said.
This week the clerk's office began sending out the correct ballots to Trinidad voters.
"So if they've received the new ballot and they've already voted the old ballot. We have just we've accepted them. We have not done anything with them. They're not in our system. We are holding them so that they have a chance to send in the corrected ballot," Apple said. "If at seven o'clock on election day they have not sent the corrected ballot, we will then take the ballot they've already sent and we will count that ballot for the presidential and the state measures. So their ballots are still going to be counted. It will just miss the Tabor notice that's on it,” Apple said.
The clerk said if people want to re vote, they can vote with the correct ballot and only one of their votes will count.
"Absolutely they can and the other ballot that we've sent out has already been basically, we call it voiding on our end. It does not mean that their vote is voided. It just means that that ballot is not going to be counted as long as they send the new ballot in, so it'll be one vote per person. There is going to be no additional voting,” Apple said.
The clerk encourages people in Trinidad who have already voted to re-vote on the proper ballot so they can vote on the tabor issue.
"I just wanted to be fully transparent with the people, let them know this was a mistake on our end. We've corrected it, and we do want them to vote,” Apple said.
She said by Thursday voters in Trinidad should receive their correct ballots. Apple said if someone has an incorrect ballot they should shred it, throw it away and vote using the proper ballot that is being sent out.
A voter called the clerks office last Wednesday to ask why TABOR measure 2A was not on their ballot. After investigating, Apple said they learned the ballot meant for Trinidad voters was coded incorrectly.
She said instead of splitting the precinct to include Trinidad, the code excluded voters in the city. The error affected 1,095 ballots.
The missing 2A question gives city voters the choice to fund improvements to the following:
- parks
- playgrounds
- open spaces
Apple said her office immediately notified the Secretary of State, which instructed them to issue a replacement ballot to voters, which includes the TABOR question and information that lets voters know about the error.
She said they worked through the weekend to reorder new ballots.
Apple is concerned the error has caused confusion among voters sharing questions online, but she said instructions with the new ballot will clear up any questions.
However, she said voters can call her office if they need any more instruction.
In El Paso County, the Clerk and Recorder tells News5 workers in his office checked and double-checked the ballot to make sure no one made any errors.
WATCH: El Paso County hasn't reported any ballot issues this season
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