Election officials discovered a dozen mail-in ballots in Mesa County in Colorado were fraudulently cast, three of which were counted, triggering a criminal investigation.
While confirming a group of signatures on mail-in ballots that were flagged for additional review, election officials reached out to the citizens and discovered they hadn't actually voted, leading to a wider investigation that found about a dozen ballots were stolen and fraudulently cast, according to the Colorado Sun.
Officials said three of the ballots were counted and cannot be removed from the official count. That's because once the ballots are pulled from the envelope and put into the system they become anonymous and can't be linked back to the envelope they came from.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold confirmed at a news conference in Denver on Thursday that the stolen ballots were "intercepted" before the rightful voters received them, and it occurred to voters who lived near each other, but she couldn't say more because of the criminal investigation. She also could not say whether they identified any suspects.
Griswold also declined to comment on whether there was a political motivation in the fraudulently cast ballots, so it is unclear for which candidate the votes were cast.
Matt Crane, the Colorado County Clerks Association, added that this was the first time this has happened in his 25-year career, but it proved the system works.
"This shows the resiliency of our process here in Colorado, that if somebody tries to do nefarious things, it will be discovered through our processes," Crane said, according to the Colorado Sun.
Originally published by Latin Times
