Archuleta County - County Clerk

Restoration Fellowship Church
264 Village Drive
(located behind the west City Market)

The upcoming election is November 2, 2010. Click on the items below to view information that will be presented on the ballot.

Archuleta County is proceeding throughout the 2010 elections by utilizing Vote Centers. Due to budget constraints placed on the county, the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) Task Force was set up to study the pros and cons of these new Vote Centers. The group unanimously decided it was to the countys' advantage to try them. Read on for more detailed information:

In the State of Colorado, “Vote Center” is defined as “a polling place at which any registered elector in the political subdivision holding the election may vote, regardless of the precinct in which the elector resides” C.R.S. 1-4-104(49.8).

The Vote Center Election affords the voter the convenience of appearing at any Vote Center in the political subdivision to cast a ballot which contains every race and issue on which he or she is entitled to vote.

The Vote Center Model was first envisioned by Larimer County Clerk & Recorder Scott Doyle in 2003. In 2002, the United States 107th Congress passed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which was signed into law in November of the same year. HAVA provided the new legal framework for voting accessibility in the United States. The Vote Center Model came about in response to implementing the new requirements of HAVA as well as a vision of a more efficient and consistent voting system.

In 2004, the Colorado General Assembly passed Senate Bill 153, which allows Vote Centers to be used in a Colorado Election. The Bill required that all Vote Centers are connected via a secure, real-time network in order to process voters and prevent persons from voting twice. That has been accomplished.

Vote Centers have already been utilized in several counties in Colorado with great success. There is no wrong place to vote!!

Vote Centers afford voters the convenience of appearing at any Vote Center in the county to cast a ballot that contains every race and issue on which he/she is entitled to vote. Vote Centers enable election officials to reduce the number of polling places from the traditional precinct sites to a smaller, more manageable number of sites.

An electronic poll book is used, necessitating the active recruitment of workers with computer skills. A student judge program is being researched to use top students from the local high school to work as election judges on Election Day.

With a push to use Mail-In (previously referred to as "Absentee") Ballots and Early Voting, you should see shorter lines than in the past elections. Heavy traffic time will still be from 7:00 am to 8:00 am; Noon to 1:00 pm and 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm. You can expect a 15 to 20 minute voting completion time when it’s not one of the peak voting times.

Control is centralized to the elections office rather than being dispersed to the individual polling places. Election judges have a direct line to election staff so questions and concerns are addressed immediately. An election employee will be assigned to each Vote Center on Election Day.

Vote Centers provide easier and less costly compliance with accessibility requirements under the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Larger, newer facilities that are already ADA compliant will be used in most instances.

Provisional ballot concerns are addressed more effectively. All ballot styles will be available at each Vote Center allowing eligible voters to cast a correct ballot. Again, there is no wrong place to vote!!

Administration is more efficient than for a precinct polling place election.

There are cost savings in many areas including the need for fewer election judges and fewer election supplies.

Political parties and candidates need fewer volunteers for poll watching.

Vote Centers work well with paper ballots and are ideal with electronic equipment which can contain all ballot styles and still provide precinct specific reporting.

Vote Centers provide additional convenience for voters, which increases voter turnout.

The electronic poll book is integral to the success of the Vote Center Election. Computer Judges need to be able to process any voter from the County at any Vote Center, not just those within one particular precinct. Voters need the flexibility of being able to vote their correct ballot style anywhere in the County without worrying about election fraud. Election officials need to make sure no one votes at more than one Vote Center on Election Day. The electronic poll book makes this all possible.

The electronic poll book serves the same function as a paper poll book, providing each Vote Center with a list of registered voters eligible to vote at that location. An electronic version of the poll book has the additional benefits of being more time efficient, less prone to human error and able to pull information from the state voter registration database through secure, encrypted, dedicated servers. The system tracks activity at all Vote Centers.

At a Vote Center, a trained Computer Judge verifies the voter’s identification and inputs the voter’s information. The electronic poll book then verifies whether the voter is eligible to vote and lets the Judge know whether the voter has already voted by another means. For example, if the voter already voted by Mail-In Ballot, the electronic poll book prevents the voter from voting twice. In addition, once a voter is credited for having voted, that information is transmitted in real time to all Vote Centers in the county to prevent that voter from voting twice.