Volunteers Hit The Pavement For Ballot Curing In Aurora Mayoral Race
AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) - More than a week after the election and ballots are still coming in for the Aurora Mayor's race. Mike Coffman was leading Omar Montgomery by less than 300 votes when the main ballot count was released on Thursday.
But thousands of ballots were returned to voters to be cured, or corrected, for a number of issues including signature discrepancies and missing signatures. Hundreds of those include the mayor's race.
Both parties are now trying to reach out to those voters directly, before the midnight deadline on Wednesday.
For the Arapahoe County Democrats supporting Omar Montgomery it meant hitting the streets.
"Every votes got to count," volunteer Derrick Blanton said.
CBS4 followed Blanton and fellow volunteer Jon Biggerstaff as they went door to door trying to track down voters who turned in a ballot, but may not know it was flagged for an issue and hasn't been counted.
"We knock on the same people's houses day after day after day maybe three or four times a day, and they were annoyed, but some were pretty happy (saying) 'Oh thank you,' because they knew we were going out there trying to help them," Blanton said.
Clerks from each of the three counties that make up Aurora identify the ballots that need to be cured and notify the voter by mail. In Colorado, voters have eight days to correct and return the ballot for it to be counted.
Laurie Ritchie helps train volunteers at the headquarters for Arapahoe County Democrats.
"The name of the game is voter contact, and getting people to return their ballots," she said,
In the week after the election, Ritchie says they've had hundreds of volunteers come in wanting to help.
"It's that important. It's that important. Every single vote counts, it's a razor thin margin," Ritchie said.
For her, Blanton and Biggerstaff the days may be long, but the extra hours are worth it.
"I think they want to make sure their voice is heard, and their vote counts," Biggerstaff said.
CBS4 reached out to Coffman's campaign as well. They declined any on camera interviews, but Coffman did post on his Facebook page saying, "Our Campaign is working hard to cure as many ballots as possible before tonight's 11:59 deadline."
A decision on the race is expected to be made sometime Thursday.
