A state agency that reviews documents told an election official in April that Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jon Keyser’s nominating petitions contained the signature of a woman who had died in January, Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Tuesday. Shortly after that, the same election official learned that data experts were suspicious that multiple signatures on Keyser’s petition appeared to share the same handwriting.

Williams didn’t learn about the dead voter’s signature or the concerns about the petition gatherer until Tuesday, two weeks after allegations first surfaced that Keyser’s petitions included forged signatures, a spokeswoman said.

“As soon as I was made aware of this, I directed my staff to refer the matter of the deceased voter to the district attorney,” Williams said in a statement released Tuesday afternoon.

KMGH-TV reported a week ago that 10 Republican voters in Littleton and southwest Denver said they hadn’t signed Keyser’s petitions, despite their signatures and detailed personal information appearing on the petition pages, which were gathered by paid circulator Maureen Moss.

Prosecutors in Denver and Arapahoe counties are reviewing complaints about potentially fraudulent petition signatures, a Williams spokeswoman said.

A data specialist with Integrated Document Solutions, a government office that handles documents for the state, notified petition verification chief Jeff Mustin that Keyser’s petition included the signature of Judy De Santis, a Broomfield Republican who died Jan. 25, more than a week before the Keyser campaign began gathering signatures, according to email correspondence obtained by The Colorado Statesman.

The dead woman’s signature was on a page containing signatures collected by Moss, who was responsible for dozens of signatures to qualify Keyser for the ballot.

Two days later, the same data specialist alerted Mustin that signatures on other petition pages gathered by Moss appeared to have been written in the same handwriting.

Mustin and a colleague had already rejected the dead woman’s signature, said Williams spokeswoman Lynn Bartels, who added that members of the “ballot access team” examined the pages of signatures brought to their attention but were unable to determine that any had been forged.

The election staffers didn’t notify Williams or Keyser that the suspicion had been brought to their attention, Bartels said. “Two people looked at it, said, ‘I don’t spot it there,’ and they moved on.”

The Statesman has been unable to contact Moss, who no longer lives at the Aurora address she listed on petition affidavits.

Asked about the latest revelations, Matt Connelly, a spokesman for the Keyser campaign on Tuesday afternoon issued the same statement he released on Friday: “All signature gatherers sign an affidavit promising they will comply fully with the law, including a promise that they personally witnessed every signature on their petition. That affidavit also says that they are aware of the consequences associated with disobeying the law.”

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler on Friday told The Colorado Statesman that forging signatures on a nominating petition could be prosecuted as a felony. On Tuesday, a spokeswoman with Brauchler’s office said that prosecutors had been contacted “regarding issues with a petition in the current election cycle” and were investigating the reports. She declined to say which candidate’s petitions were involved or to discuss the matter further, saying that’s the office’s policy in ongoing investigations.

Keyser, a former state lawmaker, is one of four Republican Senate candidates who attempted to qualify for the primary ballot by petition.

Former NFL quarterback and CSU athletic director Jack Graham gathered a sufficient number of signatures – 1,500 from each of Colorado’s seven congressional districts – but Keyser and Colorado Springs businessman Robert Blaha had to obtain court orders reversing initial Williams rulings that they’d come up short. Former Aurora City Councilman Ryan Frazier lost a court appeal seeking a similar ruling but is awaiting action by the Colorado Supreme Court. (Frazier has agreed to withdraw from the race if he loses the appeal to prevent his votes from being counted.)

El Paso County Commissioner Darryl Glenn was the only Republican to emerge out of the caucus and assembly process, winning top line on the primary ballot.

The winner of the June 28 primary will face Democrat Michael Bennet, who is running for a second full term in November.

– ernest@coloradostatesman.com