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Broomfield Election Officials Find 'Spoiled' Ballots

BROOMFIELD, Colo. (CBS4) - Election judges in Broomfield found "spoiled" ballots when they opened a box of ballots found separate from other material from the November election.

A spoiled ballot is one that might have been damaged or when voters made too many mistakes on a ballot and asked for a new one.

The box should have been stored with other material from the election. The law requires that material be kept for at least 25 months.

Once it was found the Broomfield City and County Clerk, Jim Candelarie, wanted to open it in a forum where the contents would be publicly known.

"Could we have done it better? Yeah," Candelarie said. "We could have brought that out when we were doing the whole election, that would have been the ultimate in transparency. Because we didn't, that's why we're doing this now, saying 'Look this is what we have.' "

By noon Friday the election judges had found at least 45 ballots. The contents of the box should impact the election results, including one that banned fracking in Broomfield.

That election is already being challenged in court. The unofficial Election Night results had the measure failing by 13 votes. After other ballots were counted, it passed by 17 votes.

After a mandatory recount, the ban passed by 20 votes.

Those results are being challenged in court. It's not clear if the discovery of the box will impact that process in any way.

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