by Rachael Wright

Forty-Five Years Ago This Week: A month after the general election, Curt Uhre, campaign director for Mary Estill Buchanan, was still dissecting just how Buchanan had lost to Democratic U.S. Sen. Gary Hart and said he believed that a recount and special election were justified.

On the day that Buchanan conceded to Hart, Uhre said he began examining the votes in Denver and had been working ever since to make sense of what he considered an unexpected outcome in the race.

“Denver just didn’t make any sense,” Uhre said. “Either we got our ass handed to us, or there was a great amount of confusion, or whatever happened, something was amok in China.”

Hart won solidly in Denver County by nearly 62%, but Uhre couldn’t understand why Denver went so heavily for Hart when other counties like Arapahoe, El Paso, Jefferson and Douglas had racked up heftier percentages for Buchanan.

Uhre’s confusion seemed justified when complaints about issues at the polls began rolling into the secretary of state’s office. So Uhre expanded his focus to include “lost votes”, “misprecincting,” confusion over absentee ballots and other violations that might affect the outcome of the race.

Hart had won by a margin of 19,000 votes, and Uhre reasoned that if this could be reduced to a level requiring a recount, Buchanan could still win. According to federal election regulations, Uhre said, the special election would then have to be administered by the U.S. Senate.

But Betty Chronic, director of the elections division at the secretary of state’s office, quashed any notion that a recount or special election would be required.

“Yes there were dozens of voting violations in Denver,” Chronic said. “The secretary of state’s office wants the Denver Election Commission to explain the mishaps. There were votes wrongfully counted, but no, the numbers are just not there to change any contest — even the House race in Denver between Jerry Kopel and Paul Swalm where the margin was less than 400.”

Chronic labeled the 1980 elections in Denver as “sloppy and mismanaged” and said she wanted to know why. To that end, she sent an eight-page directive to the DEC demanding clarification on the issues ranging from misprecincting to absentee voting.

Donald Nicholson, president of the DEC, responded a day later with a request for more time to tackle the specifics.

When Chronic was finally presented with DEC’s information, she said she found “a lot of stupid things” the DEC did that had indeed affected voting and attributed many of the problems to “untrained staff and a lack of professionalism.”

“Most of the people there get their jobs through the patronage system,” Chronic said. “There isn’t enough training or supervision.”

Fifteen Years Ago: “I’m flattered,” Ryan Call, the Colorado Republican Party’s legal counsel said. “But I’m not going to run against Dick Wadhams. I am, however, seriously looking at how I can help the conservative cause.”

For weeks rumors had been swirling that Dick Wadhams, state Republican Party chair, would run for a third term in March. 

Call told The Colorado Statesman that he had been “thinking about it” and said he could do the job full-time despite the challenges, including the 2012 presidential election.

“With the state party finances limited,” Call said, “a cadre of volunteers will need to be trained, and, if elected state chair, I will emphasize organizational development, fundraising, candidate recruitment and building the party’s infrastructure.”

The attorney was quick to point out all the work that Wadhams had done over the last four years.

“Dick has a tremendous skill set in messaging,” Call said, “but I see my own strengths in other areas.”

Meanwhile, supporters of former state Sen. Tom Wiens, R-Castle Rock, were hard at work drumming up support. Wiens told The Statesman that he would run for party chair regardless of whether Wadhams ran again.

Rachael Wright is the author of several novels, including The Twins of Strathnaver, with degrees in Political Science and History from Colorado Mesa University, and is a contributing columnist to Colorado Politics, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and the Denver Gazette.