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10 21 24 JeffCo Clerk and Recorder Amanda Gonzalez talks about voting in her county
But there's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank. You deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado. There's only one member FDIC. We're getting closer and closer to Election Day, coming up on November 5th, then as of today, you should have received your ballot in the mail, but what if you want or need to vote in person? Joining us now in the KOA, Kamis Bird Health Hotline, Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder, it's Amanda Gonzalez. We appreciate you coming on with us this morning, Amanda. Tell us what Jeff Kovoders need to know about the voting centers, where they can go, where they open in those details. Yeah, I am so excited because today is the first day of in-person voting throughout Colorado. So in Jefferson County, we will end up having a total of 34 vote centers, but six of those open today. And so it gives Coloradans the opportunity to vote in whatever way works best for them. So you can vote the ballot that was mailed to you. You can fill it out at your kitchen table. Get it into a drop box anywhere in Colorado. You can mail it back, or you can vote in person at any vote center in your county. Amanda, what does turnout look like so far for Jeff Kovoders, and what are you hoping to see in this election cycle? I am looking forward to seeing every eligible voter cast their ballot and have that ballot accurately counted. In 2020, I think we got nearly 90% of eligible voters to vote in Jefferson County, and I'm really hoping that we beat that this year. So far, ballots are starting to come in. We've got about 430,000 active registered voters. We've seen just under 40,000 ballots come in. So that's about a 9% turnout, but we're expecting that to uptick pretty dramatically as we get closer to November 5th. Do most voters in Jeff Kovoders vote by mail, or do they go in person? Throughout Colorado, voters really prefer to vote the ballot that was mailed to them. So between mailing it back to us or dropping it off in one of those 24/7 secure ballot drop box, we usually see somewhere between 92 and 97% of ballots come back that way. So it's usually a pretty small percentage of people that decide to vote in person. But there are some really good options available to voters at Colorado vote centers. You can vote on an accessible machine. You know, if a dog ate your ballot or your kid colored on it, you can pick up a replacement ballot at any vote center in your county. And for the first time in a presidential election, a number of counties, most of the metro ones included will be offering the opportunity to vote in Spanish at your vote center in person. So if you don't live in Denver and your ballot doesn't come to you bilingual anyway, you do have that opportunity in many vote centers throughout the state this year. Clark Gonzales, we've spoken with Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul Lopez a lot too, as we've been looking at this. First off, both of you guys have mentioned dog-seeding ballots, which may happen more often than I think, but anyway, so when it comes to just the safety and safety and security of ballots, something that's very important in all of our election cycles nowadays, what is the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder's office doing in order to protect and make sure that your ballot is being counted and safe? Yeah, I think that's so funny. We're a dog-loving state, right? So in addition to keeping your ballot safe from your pooches at home, one of the key features of safety in Colorado is that every vote that is counted is from a paper ballot, and you can't act paper. And so whether you're choosing to vote in person, mailing it back, or dropping it off in a drop box, you're testing your vote on paper, and that's what you're counting. Another aspect that I'm really proud of is that not only do we test all of our elections equipment before anybody votes, we call that a logic and accuracy test, and it happens a couple weeks before the election, but we also have what's called a risk-limiting audit, which is an audit that we do on the back end to verify that our tabulation machines, which by the way are never connected to the internet, that our tabulation machines are counting your vote just as it's cast on paper. So we're literally pulling paper ballots and comparing them to the computer after the election. We do that in partnership with both the Democratic and the Republican parties to verify that your votes were counted accurately before we certify the election. I don't have to tell you, we're kind of unique to multiple times, curious if you and your workers have been threatened, and what steps have you taken to protect yourself and your workers as you're tallying the votes? Yeah, absolutely. You know, if you had asked me 10 years ago if we would be talking about the safety of election workers, I would have thought that you were bonkers, right? The people that work our elections are your neighbors and your friends. They are everyday people that you go to church with, your kids go to school with. In Jefferson County, we hire about 900 election workers for this election, and they work in bipartisan teams. Your ballot is never alone with just one person. It's always with two people of different parties. And so it means that we, this is a community effort, right? We meet a lot of people, and we've also been doing a lot of outreach, and I get this question at every kite festival or harvest festival that we're at saying, "Are my elections safe, and if I decide to work on them, am I safe?" And I will say that we are better prepared than we have ever been. You know, I think we saw some scary things in 2020, and we've done more tabletop exercises, put in more security measures in the last four years on top of what we were already doing. And one of the things that really gives me hope is that inevitably I get the question about if I decide to become an election judge or a poll worker, am I safe? And then resoundingly, we have people sign up because I think we all saw in 2020 that our democracy can be fragile, and we have to fight for it. And so I am so pleased that the number of people who have said, "Count me in. I want to work with somebody who maybe doesn't see the world the same way I do, but I want to work together to make sure that our democracy functions for everybody." Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder at Amanda Gonzalez, thank you so much for your time this morning. Thank you for having me. There's only one feeling like knowing your banker personally, like growing up with a bank you can count on, like being sure what you've earned is safe, secure, and local. There's only one feeling like knowing you're supporting your community. You deserve more from a bank, you deserve an institution that stood strong for generations. Bank of Colorado, there's only one member FDIC.