A resident group in Colorado Springs has filed a complaint with the El Paso County clerk and recorder, alleging “anomalies” in some of the ballot returns for the city’s April 4 municipal election.

In the formal complaint submitted to Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker on Sept. 25, the group Integrity Matters said it and other residents spent a month analyzing the city’s election returns, ballot transit logs and videos of the ballot boxes, and alleged they found a lengthy list of “alarming findings.”

The group asked Schleiker to file the complaint with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office to conduct a forensic investigation into the matter.

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Integrity Matters claims to have identified irregularities in some of the city’s election returns, such as instances of two dead residents casting ballots; no ballot box video coverage, as state law requires, for 42% of the votes cast; and several concerns over ballot chain of custody, including nearly 400 votes with no transit logs, errors and missing or illegible signatures on hundreds of transit logs, and nearly 30 instances where the group claims the city clerk reported ballot totals that don’t match transit logs, among others.

A full list of the group’s complaints is posted on its website, integritymatterscos.org/update-4-4-2023-election.

“… Our goal has never been to overturn the results. We came to this position quite honestly in seeing initial anomalies, which led us to more and more problems. Quickly, it became clear that we cannot rule out fraud, and voters deserve better than this. Transparency of the process and meticulous chain of custody of the ballots are fundamental to ensuring democracy works,” the group wrote in the complaint, which it shared with The Gazette.

Integrity Matters president and co-founder John Pitchford, co-founder Dana Duggan and chief legal officer Kat Gayle signed the complaint. Gayle was one of 11 candidates who ran to fill three at-large Colorado Springs City Council seats on April 4; voters elected Councilmembers Lynette Crow-Iverson, David Leinweber and Brian Risley to the seats. Gayle came in fourth place. 

In response to questions The Gazette sent to the City Clerk’s and City Attorney’s offices, city spokeswoman Vanessa Zink on Wednesday said in an emailed statement, “The April 4, 2023, general municipal election was conducted in compliance with the Colorado Springs city charter, city code and the Colorado Municipal Election Code and the results are valid.

“We have received a total of 17 Colorado Open Records Act requests related to the April 4, 2023, election. Nine of those requests came directly from Integrity Matters, and one request came from Mr. John Pitchford, one of the individuals making the complaint.

“The city has responded to each request received. We do not believe it’s in the best interest of residents to expend additional taxpayer resources on excessive unfounded accusations and duplicative requests.”

Zink said the city is aware of the complaint and is “reviewing the legitimacy of the allegations.” Currently, there is no timeline for that review, she said.

Because Colorado Springs is a home-rule city, its city charter and code, as well as applicable portions of state municipal election law, govern the way it conducts elections.

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The El Paso County Clerk’s Office does not have jurisdiction to hear complaints related entirely to a home-rule municipal election, Schleiker wrote in an email accompanying the complaint, which he forwarded to Johnson, City Attorney Wynetta Massey, 4th Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen and Steven Klaffky in the El Paso County Attorney’s Office Friday afternoon.

Jack Todd, a spokesman for the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, said Wednesday the department had no jurisdiction to hear the complaint.

Colorado Springs city code states anyone can file an affidavit or complaint with the City Attorney’s Office for violations of city code or state municipal election code, and the city attorney will investigate. If “reasonable grounds are found,” the city attorney must prosecute the violation in municipal court.

City code also states the district attorney and state attorney general have “equal power” with the city attorney to file information or complaints against a person for violating a provision of the state’s municipal election code.

The 4th Judicial District Attorney’s and Colorado Attorney General’s offices did not respond by press time to The Gazette’s requests this week for comment.

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Schleiker wrote in his Friday email he forwarded Integrity Matters’ complaint to what he believed is the “proper authority”: the city. He also said he believed the 4th District Attorney’s Office is the proper entity to which concerns related to possible criminal violations of law should be submitted.

Integrity Matters in its complaint recommended the county, not the city, manage municipal elections.

The nonpartisan resident group has criticized other city efforts for what it said was lack of transparency, including the format of several “Listening Tour” sessions Mayor Yemi Mobolade and councilmembers hosted in all six council districts in the late summer, to help inform Colorado Springs’ updated strategic plan.

Integrity Matters members previously claimed the listening sessions were too controlled and focused only on specific topics.

The group is also one of three plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit against the city on Sept. 5, claiming the City Council’s decision to allow a 50-unit apartment complex for homeless young adults to be built on the city’s west side “creates a public safety risk and deviates from the city’s responsibility to protect public safety.”