Following Mesa County ballot issue, expert stresses cases of voter fraud in Colorado are rare

GREELEY, Colo. — A criminal investigation is underway after around a dozen ballots were intercepted in Mesa County and cast without voters’ knowledge.

Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said Wednesday the ballots never made it to the voters’ homes before they were filled out, sealed in the ballot envelopes, signed and returned through a postal box.

Three made it all the way through the counting process. Those votes cannot be reversed. One ballot made it through the signature verification process, but was caught before it was counted.

The issue was discovered during the signature verification process.

While you may hear about claims of voter fraud, out of millions of ballots cast, it’s unusual. 

Republican Weld County Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes said while cases of voter fraud do happen, they’re rare and usually easily spotted.

“In Colorado, historically we have not seen a whole lot of voter fraud,” Koppes said. “In my 20 years, I have administered precinct polling locations, vote centers and now the mail ballot and any model we’ve had, we’ve always had attempts but it’s never been to a huge extended amount that would qualify for anything to disrupt an election or the outcome.” 

Koppes said that’s what makes the situation in Mesa County so strange.

“It definitely is something that is unusual,” Koppes said. “This is my 20th year in elections and we’ve never seen anything like that in Colorado before. So it definitely is something that is not typical and I think they’re doing a great job with the investigation.”  

A number of those ballots were caught during the signature process.

“What we have seen is they have tried to forge somebody’s signature, especially in the mail ballot election model now. And since we have every single signature in your voter file, it is pretty easy for our trained election judges to be able to identify and say hey, wait a second, these are not matching. It’s very hard for someone to mimic your signature,” Koppes said. 

According to data from the conservative Heritage Foundation, 14 people have been convicted of voter fraud in the past 10 years in Colorado.

Barry Morphew was convicted after using his dead wife’s ballot to vote for Donald Trump in 2020.

And former GOP chair Steve Curtis was convicted of voter fraud in Weld County in 2017. 

“We had the former state GOP chair attempt to sign his ex-wife’s ballot,” Koppes said. “We got all the evidence we needed and our DA’s office did a fantastic job of representing that in court. He was found guilty.”

Koppes said while some voter fraud issues that pop up are unintentional, like a parent voting for their college student or a spouse accidentally signing both ballots, other people are trying to fool the system. 

But the cases of this happening, Koppes stressed, are small. On average, they investigate about 200-300 people out of 3 to 4 million voters. 

“So the percentage is really, really small,” Koppes said. 

If you have questions or concerns about election security and safety, contact your county clerk. They can answer questions so you can feel comfortable casting your ballot.