Vote counting center open in time for Nov. election - Reporter-Herald
Thomas Clayton
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Larimer County vote counting center opens in time for Nov. election
The November election is approaching quickly, and Larimer County is ready for it.
A new facility, the Larimer County Central Count Facility, became operational earlier this fall, just in time for the presidential election, the highest turnout election that the Larimer County Clerk and Recorder’s Office sees.
Cody Coldiron with Esi Technologies adjusts one of the many cameras that are on all the time inside the Larimer County ballot counting center in Fort Collins on Tuesday. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)The previous location was far too small to accommodate the work necessary for a timely and organized count, said Clerk Tina Harris, who will appear on the November ballot for county clerk, challenged for her office by Wyatt Schwendeman-Curtis.
“We knew moving into this election that we needed more space,” Harris said.
The breakroom at the old facility had a capacity of only 12 people, and had only two bathrooms to serve between 200 and 300 employees on election night. Designated work areas at the old facility often blended together, said Michele Mihulka, elections director for Larimer County, which made staying organized difficult.
Those problems are gone now, as the new facility boasts large, clearly distinct areas for each phase of the process of counting ballots, including a receiving bay to bring them safely into the facility, a spacious counting area to determine how many ballots have come in, a separate room for signature verification, a designated area to separate the signed envelopes from the anonymous ballot within, and individual work stations for the scanning of each ballot.
Separate tables in another spacious room allow for ballots flagged by the vote counting system to be reviewed by a bipartisan team of election judges to determine if the discrepancy indicates a ballot that’s clear enough to be counted.
In total, the available space for employees has grown by 4,310 square feet, from 10,090 square feet at the old facility to 14,400 at the new one, according to figures provided by Harris.
The ballot counting process will begin in the coming weeks, as early voting becomes available when mail ballots are sent out on Oct. 11.
Michele Mihulka, Larimer County elections director, is framed by shelves holding boxes that will hold ballots in the area where ballots are separated from their envelopes at the Larimer County counting center in Fort Collins. (Jenny Sparks/Loveland Reporter-Herald)Election security has become an increasingly salient element of election officials’ jobs, and Mihulka stressed that a clear chain of custody follows ballots from the moment they’re removed from a drop box until they’re placed in a secure vault at the conclusion of the election. After 25 months, barring any other reasons to keep them, like a lawsuit, those ballots are then safely destroyed.
The center is exclusively for the vote counting operation, Mihulka added, and is only one part of the larger elections division for the County Clerk and Recorder’s Office, which also manages documents like marriage licenses and vehicle registration throughout the year.
“This is only one arm of our process,” Mihulka said. “This is the ballot facing arm, this is where we tabulate, but we have a whole voter operating process that runs our VSPC (Voter Service and Polling Center), that works with the public, that does voter registration. This is just a piece. But it’s a piece we have to get right, because the entirety of the election is tied to our accuracy and security.”
 | Tom Clayton Communication and Media Specialist, Public Affairs |
| Commissioners' Office 200 W Oak St, Fort Collins, 80522 | 2nd Floor W: (970) 498-7005 tcla...@larimer.org | www.larimer.org |