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Man receives multiple ballots in mail

Late-arriving primary mail raises questions
Patrick O’Leary shows one of the multiple ballots recently delivered in the mail to his Durango apartment. O’Leary received both general-election and primary-election ballots for himself, his son and his grandson. Questions remain why the primary ballots were delivered months after the June primary election.

Patrick O’Leary expected to vote in the Nov. 4 election. But when six ballots arrived at his East Fifth Avenue apartment in the past week, the Durango resident was puzzled.

There were two ballots each for him, son Patrick O’Leary II and grandson Austin O’Leary. Patrick O’Leary hadn’t opened the first envelope when the second round arrived.

“I assumed that they were duplicate ballots for the November election,” O’Leary said. “I was leery and didn’t want to tamper with them, so I didn’t open them.”

O’Leary said his son and grandson each have used his address at one time or another, but only he lives there now.

La Plata County Clerk & Recorder Tiffany Lee Parker determined by coding on the ballots that one ballot for each of the men corresponded to the June primary election.

But that begs the question of why ballots for the June primary arrived in October, Parker said.

Parker said she has made an inquiry of the U.S. Postal Service.

“We have a tight process,” Parker said. “Everything is accounted for, so I don’t know why this happened.”

The election office recently received a ballot from the June primary from another voter, Parker said. But it turned out that the ballot had been set aside among other correspondence that the recipient had forgotten to mail until just recently.

daler@durangoherald.com



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