When a county clerk in a poor, rural county in south-central Colorado reversed the results of the Nov. 2 election three days later and declared herself the winner, many of the residents there cried foul. Not only did Saguache County Clerk Melinda Myers go from loser to winner during what many consider to be an improper retabulation, so did the incumbent county commissioner of the same party affiliation. A slew of bipartisan complaints to the secretary of state have fallen on deaf ears.
Enter Teresa Benns, a reporter for the area's small-town newspaper, the Center Post Dispatch, and a small band of election activists from across Colorado who have been raising hell ever since. So far, they say they've discovered a multitude of election law violations plus pictures and videotape documenting secret meetings and unlawful ballot handling. Meanwhile, they say, the sheriff is destroying evidence as officials try to sweep the controversy under the rug.
But documentation of questionable, if not wholly illegal, election activity has gotten out. And Saguache County observers believe it all adds up to suggest Myers stole the election. Just as bad, they say, a host of public officials are complicit.
A trail of private e-mails and public documents shows that even though the Colorado Secretary of State's Office acknowledges a number of problems with the election, the agency has failed to do much about it. Worse, the secretary of state's lead officials may have even made untrue claims in their attempts to make the matter go away.
An investigator for the Colorado Attorney General's Office is now on the case. But the former secretary of state, Bernie Buescher, who, some say, may be complicit in the Saguache County election debacle, recently joined the AG's office.
How will the investigation play out? Did fraud really occur in Saguache County? Who will untangle the thicket of conflicts of interest that begin in a rural Colorado county and end in the highest levels of state government in Denver?
This story transcends Saguache County's borders as it speaks to the integrity of all elections in Colorado, where rules are made but, often times, intentionally not enforced. With the outcomes of public offices and issues sometimes boiling down to a single vote, the electorate ought to know what goes on behind the scenes of the state's elections.
