Recount scheduled for week of July 25 for Democratic contest for Boulder County Commissioner

Boulder County, Colo. – The final official results from Boulder County’s 2022 June Primary Election are now available at www.BoulderCountyVotes.org.

The final official results include the Statement of Votes, a document that shows precinct-by-precinct results for each contest. The Statement of Votes will be forwarded to the Colorado Secretary of State’s office as part of the election closeout process.

Last week, elections staff and the appointed Audit Board (five Democratic Party and five Republican Party representatives) successfully completed the Boulder County portion of the statewide Risk-Limiting Audit. This is a post-election test that provides citizens with evidence that election results tabulated by our voting system reflect the actual votes cast by voters. The process reviews how a ballot’s votes were captured at the time it was processed by our voting system by comparing the actual physical ballots with their digital tallies captured at the time of processing. To perform the audit, the Secretary of State’s office assigns a random sampling of the exact ballots we must review out of all the ballots cast in an election.

Elections staff also completed the reconciliation process. This process provides the evidence for the Canvass Board to certify that the number of votes counted is equal to or less than the number of ballots cast and that the number of ballots cast is equal to or less than the number of eligible voters. The Reconciliation Report is also available online.

This year’s Canvass Board consisted of Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick and party representatives from the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. Lynne McNamara represented the Democratic Party. Emily Brake represented the Republican Party.

Monday afternoon via a remote video conference, the Canvass Board certified the election results. The canvass documents, audit documentation, and the Statement of Votes are available at www.BoulderCountyVotes.org.

Now that the election results have been certified, Boulder County Elections will focus on preparing for the automatic recount of the Democratic contest for Boulder County Commissioner – District 3. The automatic recount was ordered by the Clerk after the final official results showed a vote difference of 68 votes out of 55,672 total ballots counted. Candidate Ashley Stolzmann had 27,870 votes to Elaina Shively’s 27,802 votes. An automatic recount is triggered when the difference between the highest number of votes cast in an election contest and the next highest number of votes cast is less than or equal to one-half of one percent (0.5%) of the highest number of votes cast. The difference here is 0.24%.

Currently, the recount is scheduled to begin on Monday, July 25. Neither the party nor the losing candidate have requested a full rescan of the ballots, so the recount will consist of re-adjudicating any Democratic primary ballots that were adjudicated during the course of the primary. Ballot adjudication occurs when a voter changes their mind on a contest (or makes a mistake) and/or has conflicting markings on their ballot on a particular contest. Ballot adjudication is done by a bipartisan team of election judges using Secretary of State guidelines on how to interpret the voter’s intentions.

The county is required to complete the recount no later than August 2 and the canvass board will reconvene on this date to recertify that portion of the election. For more information on the recount and any additional updates, including the time the recount will start, see the Ballot Processing Election Night and Beyond section on our website, www.BoulderCountyVotes.org.