On a Saturday morning, amidst a $h!tstorm of palace intrigue, allegations of election tampering, and reckless actions and stupid decisions, an Erie, Colorado town elections official resigned from the job she held for more than a decade with no notice and no specific reason given.
Nancy Parker, a personal friend of liberal mayoral candidate Jennifer Carroll, and no friend to growth, is accused of using her position in the town bureaucracy to make an eleventh-hour change to the date of the drawing for positions on the April ballot, and drew lots for ballot position using paper of different sizes. Parker’s friend’s name was on a piece of paper noticeably smaller than the piece for opponent Dan Woog.
As part of the ballot access process, a packet was made available to potential candidates that outlined a name selection process for the order of names on the ballot. The drawing was supposed to happen on January 31. However, on the evening of January 22, Parker made the unilateral decision to do the ballot name draw on January 23 – the very next day.
None of this sat very well with AJ Krieger, the town administrator, and on Friday, January 26, Krieger asked Parker for an explanation about the change of date, as well as the ballots of different sizes that were supposed to be drawn randomly.
Less than 24 hours later Parker resigned from her position in a four-sentence email to town leaders from a personal email address that showed up as “grittykitty59” in Outlook. (Nancy, please email us, tell us what Gritty Kitty means. Please.)
The Weld County DA investigated and, last week, they said that they could not find anything illegal, but encouraged Erie officials to pursue any unethical actions.
Parker claimed that she had no interest in setting up her friend Jennifer Carroll at the top of the ballot. Sure. So why would she resign the morning after being confronted with a demand for an explanation. She had held the position for 12 years.
So we are told to believe that the drawing just happened to be moved up a week with no notice, that the paper just happened to be different sizes for different candidates, that the town clerk just happened to walk away from her job with zero notice for “personal and professional reasons,” and that the anti-growth candidates just happened to get top spot on the ballot.
Sure.