By now the nearly 473,000 ballots mailed out by the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder’s Office have reached active registered voters in the Pikes Peak region. Or have they? A national audit of election mail between December and June by the U.S.
Postal System’s inspector general found that 98.2% of it arrived on time. That might sound pretty good until you realize that means 1.
8% of it did not — the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of ballots across the country. Then there is the issue of people filling out their ballots incorrectly or late. El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker and his team work hard to make sure the county has the right addresses.
If there’s a problem with returned ballots, voters are given an opportunity to “cure” or fix them. An all-mail election state since 2013, Colorado citizens have grown accustomed to “going to the polls” from the convenience of their homes. Even traditionalists and cautious skeptics like myself have to acknowledge the efficiency of our local election officials.
I receive an email notifying me my ballot was mailed out — and another letting me know it’s been recorded, often just hours after I’ve dropped it off. But entrusting the fate of our republic to the U.S.
Postal Service on the front end might seem like a risky gambit, especially given the USPS lost $6.5 billion last year. In fact, the government projects the federal agency is on track to lose $160 billion over the next 10 years.
The Post Offi.
