What’s in the Magic Box? Scene from SE7EN, as tweeted by @Chickenlooper today.
This won’t surprise you – the same elections officials who last year admitted to disenfranchising a bunch of voters in conjunction with an initiative to ban hydro-fracking are now saying that a box of 75 ballots hidden from public view was really much ado about nothing. And, we are *COUGH-COUGH* skeptical.
“Broomfield elections administrator Michael Susek said the box was used to collect ballots deemed not countable in the election, but some voter advocacy groups say the box’s contents should have been accounted for during the election instead of being catalogued now.
The box was located in Susek’s office until Friday, when the unsealed metal box was opened and catalogued in front of an audience of residents and news crews.”
The truth about the contents of the magic box remains to be seen. No one was allowed to see anything except from a distance.
Doesn’t inspire much confidence, does it?
(Marilyn Marks, please email us with the real story.)
The Broomfield Enterprise, which we once thought was a real newspaper, but based on their ham-handed coverage of this recount we can’t know for certain, reported the election officials’ comments about the mystery box as if they were fact. Nothing to look at here, the Enterprise reports.
Count us among the skeptical. The blundering boners in the Broomfield elections department don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Dems will always win! No one does fraud in Colo. like the Dems, except maybe the national Dems.
How long before Denver becomes another Detroit? Colo another CA?
You asked for the “real story” the box of 80 suddenly appearing ballots. “Move along, there’s nothing to see here. In fact, there is so very little to see that authorized watchers must stay 10 feet away from the box and its contents.”
Never mind the statement Broomfield filed with the court last week stating that the activities could be overseen by “eligible watchers.” When authorized watchers attempted to submit their credentials, in order to get close enough to see the documents concealed for several weeks, officials claimed that watchers could only “observe” from a distance along with the unwashed—the voters who own the election. When we asked about the City's assurances to the court, officials essentially “shrugged their shoulders.” That was then and this is now. Nothing to look at here. Move along.
Despite that fact that the clerk called in 4 election judges to handle these ballots, the City claimed this was NOT an “election activity,” so it did not require full transparency. Huh? When presented with the opportunity to be more transparent, they chose to put up with plastic theater ropes to keep the observers and press from getting close enough to actually see. Such ropes were appropriate, as it was indeed election transparency “theater.”
An inventory of the contents was taken, but the City stopped short of opening the envelopes to determine whether any contained voted ballots. The Secretary of State’ office and the attorney for BBEC objected to the opening of such envelopes without the court’s authority and without appropriate watcher oversight. So, we do not know whether voted ballots were inside the envelopes.
The exercise raised far more questions than it answered. For example, there were 37 “spoiled” ballots, although the official certified abstract shows that only 2 ballots were spoiled for the entire election. Nursing home residents’ ballot envelopes were marked “deceased” with no documentation as to who marked them or the proof for cancelling the voters’ ballot and registration.
In summary, I had no confidence in the previous reported results. Now I have far less confidence!