Nurses, doctors, grocery store checkers, postal workers, truck drivers. The accolades continue for these heroes during the coronavirus crisis.

Add this profession to that list: your county clerk and recorder. 

It is amazing how many duties clerks perform and what they have done in recent weeks to try to do their jobs as calls from anxious Coloradans pour in.

“I just bought a car. It wasn’t through the dealer. What do I do?”

“I need to research a property record because someone is trying to close on a home but the courthouse is closed.”

“What does this mean for the June 20 primary election?”

But as the clerks like to say in their e-mails to each other, #WeGotThis.

“Our clerks are rock stars,” said Pam Anderson, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. “They have spent the last 10 years or more modernizing their operations: elections, land records and Department of Motor Vehicles.”

Just think of where Coloradans would be if clerks hadn’t pushed to put so many services online, including voter registration, vehicle services, including annual registrations, and digitizing vital land and property records to make them searchable by bankers and title companies.

Some transactions, however, must be done in person, and clerks and their staff are designated as essential to facilitate this process while protecting the public health and safety of their team. 

The clerks association worked with Gov. Jared Polis once he began to sound the alarm about the danger of gathering in large groups to try to get an in-person exemption for marriage licenses and allow for remote notarization for transactions. Colorado law says couples must apply in person at a county clerk’s office.

The executive orders came over the past few days, and clerks are beginning to safely implement these important local government functions. 

Full disclosure: I handle communications for the association. That means I am on the daily conference calls with the clerks and their staff to talk about updates in these days of remote working and 6-foot separation requirements.

Arapahoe County District Attorney George Brauchler, who spoke at the clerks association summer conference in 2016, called county clerks  “the guardians of the galaxy.” Anyone listening on the conference calls would agree. 

Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk, and association president, La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Parker, are working round the clock to try to answer questions from their members.

I asked some clerks how it is going. 

Eagle County Clerk Regina O’Brien said staffers in her elections, recording and liquor divisions have been working remotely since the office closed to the public March 16. 

Her office issues liquor licenses in unincorporated Eagle County. On a recent clerks conference call, two staffers with the Colorado Department of Revenue talked with clerks about giving extensions for license holders who need to renew.

“Our county IT department has been a tremendous partner in getting us set up quickly to work from home, including answering phone calls that come to our desk lines. Technology has been a godsend for continuity of operations,” O’Brien said.

Motor Vehicle operations have been more challenging, although county residents who need to renew their vehicle registrations are opting to use mail or online options. 

Private-party transfers, a person-to-person sale of a vehicle, is more difficult. The clerk’s office needs the title from the seller, which needs to be properly signed. The purchaser needs to provide ID, fill out the paperwork and registration, pay for the cost and then he or she gets handed their license plates.

“People are reaching out to us saying, ‘I can’t come in, what can I do?’ ” O’Brien said.

These days, in most counties customers who need to complete this transaction now receive a packet via e-mail or snail mail that includes the necessary paperwork. Once that is filled out, the forms and payment can be mailed back to the clerks’ office or dropped off at 24-hour voter ballot boxes, which many counties are now using to receive documents of all types, including property tax payments.

“These boxes are fantastic,” O’Brien said. “They are so handy.”

For that, a big shout out to former Secretary of State Wayne Williams, who used federal election money to help counties statewide pay for drop boxes and the required security cameras. 

He wanted voters to be able to drop off their ballots any time of the day or night. And he pointed to a 2014 District Court ruling that said clerks can’t count ballots that arrive after 7 p.m. on Election Day even if the postmark showed the ballot was mailed in plenty of time.  During election season, drop boxes are emptied several times a day by bipartisan election teams.

In Lincoln County, Clerk Corinne Lengel said the most difficult thing for her has been scheduling.

“Juggling the schedules of immune-compromised employees, and those with small children or at ‘peak age’ in an office of seven has its challenges,” she said. “Although we live in the age of convenience, we are learning to serve customers with their recording and motor vehicle business utilizing the postal service, e-mail and fax, kind of like we did ‘in the old days.’ “

She said the staffers working at their office in Hugo, which is closed to the public, continues to process voter registrations and the county’s payroll and accounts payable while maintaining social distancing.

“I’m definitely more grateful than ever for our big office,” Lengel said.

In Routt County, one-third of the staff works out of the now-closed courthouse in Steamboat Springs to keep up with Motor Vehicle renewals, recording, title and mortgage mail, liquor licenses, elections deadlines and balancing the books, Clerk Kim Bonner said.

“Several staff members are teleworking every day from home keeping up with indexing, e-mail and election data entry.  Everyone is spending time manning the COVID-19 call center remotely when not at work,” she said. “It’s our reality.”

The clerks are planning for the June primary even though no one is sure what the situation will be like then.  

Colorado is a mail-ballot state, but some voters still visit voter-service and polling centers, either to vote in person, request a ballot or take advantage of same-day registration.  The clerks urge that prospective voters verify their registrations at www.govotecolorado.gov now to make sure you avoid having to come in person.

Many election judges are older and are considered high-risk. Even if the stay-home orders are lifted, will clerks be able to get enough judges?

So many questions and some without answers – for now. But as the clerks say, #WeGotIt.