Viewpoint: Voting is Easy, Right?

Terry Kraus Terry Kraus

Terry Kraus

Editor/Publisher Greenhorn Valley View

发布日期: 2023年5月10日
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Six men faced off to fill three positions on the Colorado City Metro Board. One of the positions they were going to fill was mine.

?You don’t want to invest the time and effort to serve two terms and then not vote for the men that will replace you. After all, and like everyone who has served two terms before me, I was pretty sure we had done a darn good job and didn’t want someone to mess it up!

?I sincerely believe that as a voter, our voice gets heard the most, the closer to home the election is. For instance, in this election just over 400 people voted. Almost 2.5 million people voted in the last election for Colorado Governor.

??So, I wanted to vote. Because of a change in the County Clerk position in Pueblo, Pueblo County, who usually runs our elections for us, were unable to do so. The new clerk was in need of training.

?So, instead of paying $6000-$8000 for an election, a company named Community Resource Services out of Greenwood Village came in with the low bid: $36,000.

??Let’s pause right now and give a pat on the back to the Pueblo County Commissioners who listened to our complaint about paying that much money for an election with our relatively small budget; and came through with enough money to make the cost of the election about like it always is.

??The Metro sent the list of eligible voters to the people in Greenwood Village. Metro District Manager James Eccher let us and the public know when the ballots were to come out.

?Lori and I didn’t get a ballot. Jim provided us with the telephone number and some forms to alert the election judges to our plight.

?I called three times, left messages, one time sent in the forms and still our ballot didn’t arrive.

??The day before the election I tried one more time and actually got the individual I had been told to ask for. He assured me he would research my claim and get back to me. He indicated that they would send the ballots by Federal Express overnight.

??I’ll admit I was skeptical.

?FedEx arrived on election day at about 10:30 a.m. Now keep in mind, election day was a Tuesday and that is our busiest day at the paper. It appeared that if our vote was going to count, I would have to drive a two hour round trip to Greenwood Village or a three hour round trip to Colorado City before 7:00 p.m.

??The man I dealt with explained to me that they were also conducting an election in Peyton, at a location just 45 minutes round trip from me.

??I quizzed him about whether our ballots would be counted if they went to Greenwood Village in an election box from Peyton. He assured me they would.

??Leaving Lori to finish the paper and, by the way, watch our four grandchildren, I ventured off. My GPS took me easily to the location. I placed the ballots in the box. Said a small prayer they would be counted and headed home.

??I followed up with the company and they assured me the ballots had been counted and they had discovered why we hadn’t gotten them. We live on a street with Smokey in the title. The label with address information said we lived on Smoky. Yep, everything else agreed but they were thrown out because there was no “e”.

??How did we vote with the rest of Colorado City. Of the top four vote getters, we had voted for three. And I must tell you, the small tiny hardship we faced made the opportunity to vote even sweeter. Thank you everyone who took the time and made the effort. It matters.

Art Kelm

End Product Support Engineer at EMD (Electro-Motive Diesel)- Retired

1 年

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