Letter to the editor: Place your ballot in a county drop box instead of the postal service

Starting Oct. 11, ballots for the 2024 General Election were mailed to all active registered voters in Grand County. I urge you to place your filled out ballot in a county drop box instead of mailing it through the postal service.

Drop boxes are securely locked with key access, logged for security audits and are under 24-hour camera surveillance. Bipartisan teams of election judges pick up from the drop boxes daily, sometimes twice or more. The judges deliver the ballots via locked ballot bags directly to the county elections office where the ballots are logged in, which generates a BallotTrax message letting voters know that their ballots have been received.

Once your ballot is received by the elections office, it is under 24-hour camera surveillance and is always in a locked cabinet or storage room unless it’s being processed. Each ballot undergoes a series of manual processes on its way to being scanned and counted. Bipartisan teams check each ballot to verify every signature, then other bipartisan teams remove your ballot from its envelope. Yet another bipartisan team scans your ballot, at which point your ballot is finally counted.

Please know, delaying delivery of your ballot until Election Day serves no purpose other than to keep diligent, conscientious election judges working later than is necessary and forces everyone to wait longer than needed to receive election results. I have been an election judge since the 2016 presidential election, and during that election night, we worked well into the next morning.

Please, use ballot drop boxes as early as you can to prevent needless delays on Election Day. Drop boxes are open. Your ballot must be placed in a drop box by 7 p.m. on Nov. 5, Election Day.

To view a list of drop box locations visit SkyHiNews.com/election or CO.Grand.co.us/147/Elections.

Melinda McWilliams
Fraser resident and local election judge

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