Recount scheduled for next week for three contests

Boulder County, Colo. – The final official results from Boulder County’s 2024 General Election are now available at BoulderCountyVotes.gov.

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.

Elections staff and the appointed Audit Board, composed of 7 republican representatives and 7 democratic 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. 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. Hyon Lew represented the Democratic Party. David Brown represented the Republican Party.

Wednesday afternoon via a remote conference, the majority of the Canvass Board certified the election results. Brown, representing the Republican party, declined to sign the documentation citing several reasons including the Secretary of State password leak as well as wanting to review the Cast Vote Record (digital copy of every ballot’s votes). The Cast Vote Record is released to the public after the certification of the election and after it has been redacted to protect voter anonymity. Both topics are outside the scope of the duty of the Canvass Board and his decision not to sign does not impact the certification. The canvass documents, audit documentation, and the Statement of Votes are available at BoulderCountyVotes.gov.

Boulder County Elections did delay the Canvass Board meeting by one day after a staff member conducting a post-election record review this past Monday discovered an error that needed to be addressed. The error resulted in the need to process an additional 271 cure ballots and have the results updated prior to the Canvass Board meeting. The updated results shifted slightly but did not change the recount status of any contests. We have a complete write up of the issue on our website, BoulderCountyVotes.gov under the Ballot Processing Election Night and Beyond section.

Now that the election results have been certified, Boulder County Elections will conduct the automatic recounts for both State Representative - District 19 and Town of Superior Trustee as well as a paid recount for Town of Erie – Council Member District 1 (paid for by candidate Andrew Sawusch). City of Boulder’s Ballot Question 2E was also within the recount margin, however, under Colorado election law an entity (city/special district) has the right to waive their right to a recount if a ballot measure fails to pass. City representatives made the decision to decline a recount after evaluating the cost to conduct the recount. Note that in the most recent recounts vote tallies only shifted by several votes; the vote spread between the Yes and No on this ballot measure is 65 votes: Yes 21,491 vs. No 21,556. There is no option to waive an automatic recount for candidates.

As background, an automatic recount is triggered when the difference between the votes cast for the candidate (or measure) who won the election with the least votes and the candidate who lost the election with the most votes is less than or equal to one-half of one percent (0.5%) of the votes cast for the candidate who won the election with the least votes. The State House District contest includes both portions of Boulder County and Weld County and is separated by 109 votes. The Town of Superior had 6 candidates vying for 3 open seats for Trustee. The final official results show a vote difference of 13 votes between the 3rd place candidate (Cracraft) to the 4th place candidate (Hammerly). Both these contests fall within the .5% threshold to require an automatic recount.

Following election statute and Secretary of State rule, the recount will consist of a full rescan of House District 19 and Town of Superior ballots, which also includes re-adjudicating ballots as needed. 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. During a recount, ballots with under votes (i.e., ballots with less than the maximum number of selections or ballots with no apparent voter markings within the target areas aka filled in bubbles) are also examined. When there are changes in vote tallies, it is usually because of different human interpretation of unusual ballot markings.

Additionally, as mentioned above, Boulder County Elections will also conduct a paid recount of Town of Erie – Council Member District 1. Any “interested party” (typically defined as candidates, political parties, governing bodies, or ballot issue campaigns) may request and pay for a recount. Because Town of Erie – Council Member District 1 falls entirely within House District 19, the cost for a recount is far less than it would be if Boulder County Elections were not already conducting a recount in that area. The process for this recount is the same as outlined above.

Prior to conducting the any recount, the county must retest the voting system (a mini version of the Logic and Accuracy test conducted prior to each election). This testing of the voting system will be conducted on Monday, December 2 from 12:30 p.m. – approximately 4:30 p.m. with members of the Democratic and Republican parties. The recount will then begin Tuesday, December 3 at 9 a.m. We anticipate that the recount will take two days, however, it could stretch into Thursday. Regardless of how long the process takes, Boulder County Elections will then post updated results on our website at the conclusion of the process (hopefully Wednesday evening). The Canvass Board will then reconvene to review and certify the results of the recount. That will most likely occur on Thursday, December 5 but that meeting has not yet been scheduled with party members.

For more information and any additional updates after this point, including the recount results and canvass meeting time, see the Ballot Processing Election Night and Beyond section on our website, BoulderCountyVotes.gov.