The journey your ballot takes from the mailbox to the tabulating machine

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – Nearly all Colorado voters, about 98%, according to State Department data, are using ballot drop boxes to cast their ballots instead of voting by mail or in person.

On Election Day, eight teams of two election judges each will collect thousands of ballots to return to the El Paco County Clerk and Recorder’s Office for tabulation. The teams are two-tiered and consist of one registered voter from each major party to ensure fairness at every step of the process.

“We work as one and we want what the voters want. We want great elections to be held and every voter’s vote to count,” said Election Judge Will Malpass.

His counterpart is Susan Quesada.

“We both did this voluntarily because we had questions about how the process worked, and I think we both feel very reassured… It’s a really, really good system,” Quesada said.

The teams do not simply drive to the assigned ballot boxes via the most suitable route. Officials with the Clerk and Recorder’s Office say routes are assigned for safety reasons and change routinely.

Election workers are instructed to park in a location visible to them while emptying a ballot box. They are instructed to keep the car locked at all times. The workers take turns performing steps in the process, including unlocking the box, emptying the box, and relocking the box. As one judge completes each of these steps, the other is instructed to keep a close eye on things to ensure that no step in the process is completed incorrectly. The bins full of ballots are sealed with two zipper-like seals and returned to the team’s car. Logs are completed and signed by each election worker to document each step.

11 News requested a ride-along with one of the polling places, but The Clerk and Recorder’s Office denied that request, saying the decision was made to protect the security of the election and the safety of election judges.

“…In case there are people who are more than skeptical, we don’t want to give them enough information to have any benefit,” Malpass said.

“The first rule is that we can’t talk about politics while we’re doing our job, so we don’t. But we actually discovered that we have so much in common, and I think people do too,” Quesada said.

If you use a ballot box, you have until 7 p.m. to drop it in one of those ballot boxes on election night. Click here for a list of polling locations.