Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein announced Wednesday the arrest of two Mesa County women, including an employee of the U.S. Postal Service, who have been charged with fraudulently filling out mail-in ballots for the 2024 general election.

The 16 ballots identified in affidavits were allegedly taken from addresses nearby.

Sally Jane Smith, aka Sally Maxedon/Sally Cline, age 59, is allegedly the person who filled out the ballots and mailed them to the Mesa County elections office. She has been charged with six counts of felony identity theft, two counts of attempting to influence a public servant, also a felony, and six counts of forgery.

Smith has a record of felony convictions for possession of drug paraphernalia and amphetamines, as well as vehicle theft charges, according to records obtained from the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.

The arrest affidavit for Smith identified her as a friend of the second suspect, Vicki Lyn Stuart, 64, a mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service. Colorado Politics could not reach anyone at the Grand Junction post office to determine Stuart’s employment status.

Stuart is charged with 16 counts of felony identity theft, two counts of attempting to influence a public servant, and 16 counts of felony forgery. The charges could result in between 54 and 150 years in prison and anywhere from $34,000 to over a million in fines. She was arrested on Wednesday. According to Mesa County jail records, Smith was also arrested Wednesday under her Maxedon alias.

Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Bobbie Gross, in a statement Wednesday, said the county’s elections division recently identified and successfully prevented fraudulent mail-in ballot attempts through its signature verification process. “We immediately reported this to the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which led to two arrests today. I am deeply grateful for the diligence and thorough efforts of the District Attorney’s Office in addressing this matter. I am proud our security measures are effective, and we will remain vigilant to safeguard the integrity of our elections.”

At least 16 election ballots were stolen, filled out, and mailed to the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder for counting. Twelve 12 were caught in the signature verification process, but three have been counted and cannot be reversed, although the voters would have been given another ballot.

The affidavits for Stuart and Smith identify 16 ballots and 16 victims and outlines how the alleged crimes took place.

According to the affidavits, on Oct. 11, Mesa County began mailing out ballots for the 2024 general election. They were initially delivered to the USPS Distribution Center on Burkey Street. The ballots were then shipped to the Grand Junction Carrier Annex on Scarlet St., where they were sorted for delivery.

Ten days later, Mesa County elections staff notified the 21st District Judicial Office that two alarmed voters had received notification that their ballots had been rejected due to discrepancies in signature. But the voters said they never got the ballots. Both ballots went to the same subdivision. Other ballots, also flagged for signature discrepancies, were found in the same subdivision but in a different “cluster,” a type of mailbox that serves multiple households.

“The fact that two different USPS locking, mailbox clusters may have been entered in the same subdivision was a significant fact, indicating that these victims may not have had their ballot taken by a family member, but rather more likely taken by someone from the locked mail box or taken by USPS staff responsible for delivering the ballots into these two mailbox clusters. USPS staff have access to postal mailbox keys,” the affidavits said.

The following day, another voter complained that his ballot had been stolen but that he’d gotten a notification that it had been turned in. He lives about a half mile from the other four voters who complained their ballots had been stolen.

That’s when investigators began looking at USPS employees since all three ballot mailing locations for the forged ballots were on the same mail delivery route, one handled by Stuart, who had substituted for the standard carrier on Oct. 12.

Stuart denied stealing or giving the ballots to anyone who would have completed them.

The affidavit said more ballots with signature discrepancies from the route Stuart handled on Oct. 12 began to surface. It also said there could be more than 20 victims, although 16 are identified by name in the affidavit.

The affidavit then moves on to Smith’s involvement, which began with fingerprints on the ballots or ballot envelopes, which the Colorado Bureau of Investigation identified and tied to Smith.

She admitted falsely completing the ballots that did not belong to her, claiming a man had given her the ballots to test the system.

She eventually admitted she’d gotten the ballots from Stuart, whom she has known for about three years. The affidavit said they conspired to test the voting signature system.

On Wednesday, when the investigator showed up at Stuart’s house, she told him, “You want to put me in prison just because I mishandled some mail?”

According to Mesa County sheriff records, both women posted bonds of $5,0000 each on Thursday and are awaiting release.