Thousands of votes already cast in Mesa County, Colorado, are being reexamined for fraud after election staff discovered at least a dozen fraudulent ballots.
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a news conference on Thursday that a criminal probe had been launched in the county.
“It appears that as of now approximately a dozen voters in Mesa County had their ballots intercepted before they arrived to them and cast without their knowledge,” she said.
The fraud was discovered during the signature verification process, when election staff compared signatures on the ballots to the voters’ signatures on file. When voters were contacted about the rejected signatures, in a process known as “curing,” election staff discovered that some of the ballots had been fraudulently filled out.
Voting by mail has become a contentious and politicized issue in recent years, largely driven by former President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent because of the practice.
Despite Trump’s long-standing criticisms of voting by mail, he appears to have changed his tune ahead of the 2024 election and has encouraged his supporters to cast their ballots early and by mail.
In Colorado, one voter told county election staff that they had not received their ballot or voted. Another voter said they received a notification through the statewide ballot-tracking system, BallotTrax, saying their ballot had been received, but they had not received their ballot or voted.
When the Mesa County clerk’s office began investigating, it found that some of the rejected ballots appeared to have been signed by the same person, Griswold said.
The findings were turned over to Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein’s office, who initiated a criminal investigation.
In an email to Newsweek, the county district attorney declined to comment on the investigation.
Now, the county is reexamining all the mailed ballots it has received—almost 30,000, Colorado Newsline reported, citing an estimate from the county clerk.
Griswold said the affected voters would receive new ballots.
“Colorado’s elections are safe and secure, and this attempt at fraud was found and investigated quickly because of groundbreaking tools that we have here,” Griswold said in the news conference.
She referenced the signature verification process, ballot curing and the BallotTrax system.
All registered voters in Colorado receive ballots by mail, which they may return by mail or at a drop box or polling center.
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