Station:    KNUS, 710 am

Show:       Jimmy Sengenberger Show

Guests:    Staiert, Suzanne

Link:        https://sengenberger.podbean.com/e/jimmy-sengenberger-show-nov-9-2019-hr-3/

Date:       November  9, 2019

Topics:     Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder, Joan Lopez, CORA Request, Replacement Ballots, United States Postal Service, Orlando Election Center Conference, Ethics Committee, Valid Identification, Jena Griswold, Secretary of State, Understaffed, Election Judges, Nonpartisan,

 

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HOST JIMMY SENGENBERGER [00:00:00] […] I mentioned a couple of ethics complaints that have been filed, and all these different things going on with Suzanne Staiert in the mix. She is the former deputy secretary of state, also a candidate for state Senate. She joins us now once again here on the Jimmy Sengenberger Show. Suzanne, welcome back!

FORMER COLORADO DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE, AND GOP CANIDATE FOR COILORADO STATE SENATE, SUZANNE STAIERT [00:00:18] Thanks, Jimmy! Thanks for having me.

SENGENBERGER [00:00:20] It’s great to have you on. I appreciate the time. Okay, so in the last segment, I broke down your complaint to the Arapahoe County Ethics Committee. That was about her trip to Orlando.  And then also talked a little bit about you being turned away at the ballot box when you were having an issue, I guess, and you were told, “Oh, it’s lunchtime,” after they fiddled with the ballot for 15 — [correcting himself] or rather your I.D. — for 15 or 20 minutes. You’ve also filed a complaint relative to that. Just quickly, I know I highlighted those two things in the last segment, but go ahead and sum them up as well for us from your standpoint, as the person who knows these more than I do.

STAIERT [00:00:59] Well, I went over to the county, about — I don’t know — it was the week before the election. And I went in the building to file the ethics complaint. So I went up to the county attorney’s office, filed the ethics complaint about the Orlando trip. And then I went down to the elections division to vote. And this was the day that the county was closing at noon because of weather. And so I pulled the ticket at 11:42 [a.m]. [00:01:28]Then I went up and I gave them my I.D., which, of course, was a utility bill because what fun would it be to go with your driver’s license. [8.1s] So, I handed on my utility bill, and they told me they wouldn’t give me a ballot if I didn’t give them my driver’s license. And I said, “Well, I left my license in the car. And you know, this is valid I.D.? So, they had to go back and read the law. And then they came back out and said, “Okay, fine, we’ll give you a license.” They weren’t very happy about it. Or [correcting herself] “We’ll give you a ballot.” They weren’t happy about it. So [they] went back again, ten minutes later, they come back and they tell me, “Well, you can’t vote in person. It’s lunch — or it’s not lunchtime — but we’re closed.

SENGENBERGER [00:02:09] Oh, okay.

STAIERT [00:02:09] And I said — so I said, “Well, what do you mean you’re closed?” And they said, “Yeah, we closed at noon.” And I said, “Well it’s not noon. I pulled the ticket at 11:42.” So, then they started arguing with me about the time. They said, “It’s 12:10.”  And I said, “No, it’s not! It’s 11:57!” And I showed them my phone and they said, “Well, we’re still closed. You’ll have to come back another day.” And I said, “Well, can I get a provisional ballot, or can I go vote on the DRE?” [And the response was,] “Nope, we’re closed,”  So, anyway, I filed a [unintelligible].

SENGENBERGER [00:02:41] Yeah, that makes perfect sense. By the way, you are cutting — a little bit — in and out, here and there, still, again, Suzanne Staiert, again, [the]  former Deputy Secretary of State. Okay, tell us about — again — about Orlando.

STAIERT [00:02:52] So, Orlando was an ethics complaint I filed because she went out to Orlando for this conference, it’s called the Election Center. Am I coming in okay?

SENGENBERGER [00:03:02] Uh,I think you’re fine now.

STAIERT [00:03:06] It’s called the Election Center, and [for] this particular conference you register for classes in advance and you get a certificate for every class you attend. So, all of her — a bunch of staff people went out with her. The staff people all registered for the classes and got the certificates. She spent six days in Orlando and didn’t register for a single class and didn’t get a single certificate. But, I mean, there are pictures of her on social media at Disney World. There’s a picture of her husband arm wrestling a character at, you know, one of the parks. And, you know, she apparently just made a, kind of, family trip out of this, you know, visit to Disney World. It cost the county almost $3,000. She had a $600 rental car. Just, all of these expenses added up, apparently for no business purpose out in Orlando. So, that’s where the ethics complaint came from.

SENGENBERGER [00:03:59] [facetiously] No, she was there to support her staff. You know? Okay!

STAIERT [00:04:02] [laughing heartily] Yeah!  She was there to support other people getting training. And I guess that  support–. I don’t know. I mean, even if you were there — I don’t think it’s a business purpose to go out and support somebody else getting trained. I mean, even if there was–.

SENGENBERGER [00:04:17] Yeah, here’s what she’d probably say, if you asked her directly about this:. [playing an audio clip of Lopez from a previous interview with 9news] “I– I don’t know how to answer that.  I–” .

STAIERT [00:04:19] [laughs].

SENGENBERGER [00:04:19] She’d have to get some help with figuring out an answer to that question. Okay, Suzanne, let’s talk a little bit about this week and the election process. I mean, I was told by somebody there watching — and other people have given me these accounts — that they were leaving at 5:00 p.m., that they were not working on the weekends. And that seems to explain why 93,000 ballots would actually be collected Monday and Tuesday, I — I — I think.  I mean, that’s a logical explanation. They had at least an hour lunch break every day. I guess that explains the delays, particularly because they were understaffed, as well. And on Thursday, according to poll watcher that I spoke with, she told me that there were fewer than 20 people in the room that was opening up the ballots and throwing away the sleeves and flattening it so that they could go through the machines and be tabulated and all that good stuff, which she said she’s never seen anything like that with so few people working on a morning where there were still 18,000 ballots to be done. I have no idea how they were able to complete it in that time. But kudos to the the staff that was actually there doing work before 5:00 p.m. on Thursday.

STAIERT [00:05:36] Yeah, I mean, she obviously understaffed for election judges. And then, you know, instead of having people come in on different shifts, she must’ve just had one group, you know, and let them go after their allotted eight hours, and didn’t seem too concerned about hurrying up with the count which, of course, just added to her troubles.

SENGENBERGER [00:05:57] So, tell us about these replacement ballots and what’s going on there. I mean, the the secretary of state, Janet Griswold, you’ve also been getting a little crosswise with. You were the one who did the CORA request and found out  –and we talked about this on this program — and found out that the secretary of state literally had a press release reviewed by Planned Parenthood before she put that release out. So she’s not necessarily the most objective person. But she’s saying the United States Postal Service was what was responsible for these delayed ballots — these replacement ballots — 664 of which were for Aurors. or thereabouts. That number, I think, is the correct number that got there on Election Day. But then the USPS says, “No, we did exactly what we needed to. And you should have requested ballots be delivered more quickly by buying — I don’t know –first class postage. What say you?

STAIERT [00:06:51] Well, I don’t know.  Initi– I mean, part of their excuse is that they had these ballots printed out in Seattle and it took a while to transmit the record over there. I don’t know exactly what their process was. But they have, you know, high speed printers available. When any of us go in to vote in person, they can print us out about it right there. I don’t see why they couldn’t have just printed out those 600 ballots and mailed them from Arapahoe County, if it was an issue, or paid expedited postage if they were concerned about them getting delivered. I don’t know why they’re laying all the blame on the post office. You know, and if they are, then maybe it’s time to admit there’s problems with our election model, which they will also never do.

SENGENBERGER [00:07:36] You know, one thing I’m told also is that the county could have had the ability to track these 800-plus replacement ballots. They could have known — and should have known, it seems — what the status was and acted appropriately if they were to have discovered that there were delays. But that would take a little bit of foresight on the part of the clerk, I would think. But–.

STAIERT [00:08:00] Yeah, I mean, they could have tracked. And I mean, obviously, we all know we can track our mail when we mail it. And they could have tracked that mail or, you know, followed up or –. I’m just–.  I don’t really know what that batch is. I’m not really satisfied with their explanation that these are all ballots that were requested — [replacement ballots] — from the voters, because that just seems to me really odd that 600-and-some people apparently requested replacement ballots, and only 115 of them voted. It seems if you would go through the trouble to request a replacement ballot, you would make sure you then made it to the polls if it didn’t arrive on time. So I have no idea what that batch is. And we won’t know until we do a CORA, which is an open records request, which is really the heart the problem, here. Every time we ask a question, we get told, “Hey, file a records request if you want to know, and then we’ll give it to you within three to ten days.” Meanwhile, candidates on the other side of the aisle are just getting whatever information she thinks it’s helpful to give them. They’re not having to put in records requests. And they’re not having to pay to have their records requests fulfilled. And this is really, I think, the fundamental problem with what’s going on in that office.

SENGENBERGER [00:09:17] Again, Suzanne Staiert, former deputy secretary of state, [is] our guest here on the Jimmy Sengenberger Show. Okay, I’m curious, too, if there were–. Tell us about this — a couple of precincts in Aurora that had issues in terms of them getting the wrong ballot. And I wonder if maybe the 600-plus ballots that have been requested, supposedly for replacement ballots, may have actually included these 250 or so ballots that were wrongly sent to these couple of precincts?

STAIERT [00:09:45] Yeah, and I think that is really kind of the heart of the question because there were 250 ballots sent out in Ward 5 that had the “Ward 4” race on it. Well, Ward 5, as we now know, is separated by — what? — about 200 votes. And so, if 250 people believed they were supposed to vote for Ward 4 — and some of them did– how would they ever know that those ballots were wrong unless they actually received some communication in the replacement ballot? So, if they went ahead and voted their Ward 4 ballots,those ballots — that particular vote would have gotten disqualified. since they’re not permitted to vote.

SENGENBERGER [00:10:25] Ojay, you’re cutting in and out a little bit much now, Suzanne.

STAIERT [00:10:28] Okay, so, if — you know — if those were the 250 ballots and those people had no idea, then that could changed the results of the race.

SENGENBERGER [00:10:37] Wow. And something else that I want to go back to — we talked about before — [is] the notion of the clerk and recorder, Joan Lopez, letting Democratic candidates know in advance — we see this on Twitter. Brian Lindstrom, candidate for city council, Omar Montgomery, [for] mayor, on Tuesday — the Tuesday before Columbus Day — Omar Montgomery and Brian Lindstrom both send out tweets demonstrating pretty darn clearly that they’re aware that ballots were gonna be dropping that Friday before Columbus Day instead of on Columbus Day, which her office told everybody on social media, to you calling in in advance, to candidates on the Republican and unaffiliated tickets and what have you, they were under this understanding. Well, lo and behold, the Democrats get advance notice. And it’s not until Republicans catch wind of it and raise a stink that they finally are told about the specifics, here,  — the day before the ballots dropped on that Thursday. That gives an advantage to Democrats. I mean, there’s nothing that we can say specifically. But Dave Gruber, Aurora city councilman, won by only 54 votes two years ago. That could sway an election, potentially.

STAIERT [00:11:49] Sure. I mean, people who are putting their communications in the mail, or people who are doing, you know, get out the vote drive, you know, they do it — they plan it — with the date of the ballot drop. And she’s giving it to one side without giving it to the other. And that’s not even accounting for the fact that this isn’t even a partisan election. And so even if she gives information to the Republicans at the same time she gives it to the Democrats, what about everybody else in this race who’s running: the unaffiliated members, the people who aren’t necessarily getting information from the parties? And so, just her entire communication strategy is just — it is mind boggling.

SENGENBERGER [00:12:27] You know, that’s a good question. I wonder what she thinks.

AUIDO OF CLERK LOPEZ FROM A 9NEWS INTERVIEW [00:12:30] I — I– I don’t know how to answer that. I–.

SENGENBERGER [00:12:33] Okay. So so we just got a few minutes left with you, Suzanne Staiert, former deputy secretary of state. And I just want to go through a list here, so, OK. We were blocked on Twitter earlier this year from the official at Arapahoe. Clark account, along with Matt Crain, Lopez’s predecessor. His wife was blocked in another constituent as well. And I’m one of at least a couple who are still blocked from here at the voting lady account, which supposedly is personal, but it doesn’t appear to be. Also, that was because we identified or at least my case I identified that she was running. And I see an independent expenditure committee called Hard Core Democrats. That doesn’t. That’s pretty subtle. Tell you what her intention was, she had publicly shared that she donated the candidates. And I just question a maybe a roar. It should handle their own elections. And now I wish they’d taken my advice. We have the Orlando story that you were talking about. Vote early, vote often. The flier I mentioned this earlier that she handed out that literally said vote early, vote often until after feedback. She decided, okay, let’s print up a new flyer. I gave the Democrat a heads up on when the ballots were going to go out, botched the election to get to the point of getting a delay. That was big time because she didn’t plan enough. And that’s just some of it. And not even all of it. I’m just getting a pattern here. People wonder why maybe I’m so incensed about this, but I’m getting a pattern of partisan and questionable behavior and behavior that questions qualifications and competence. And I think it’s worth pursuing these issues more and more closely.

STAIERT [00:14:08] Well, it’s certainly worth pursuing now because, you know, buckle up for 2020. Can you imagine what this is going to be like when we have high turnout and we have partisan races and, you know, somebody who’s not qualified to run an election and who is also, you know, just still playing the community activist role is supposed to be in charge?

SENGENBERGER [00:14:32] Well, I think maybe somebody should get a chance to screw it up once and then they get a mulligan in the next election? Maybe that’s what’s going on? No, I have called on Clerk Lopez to resign from her post as Arapahoe County Clerk and Recorder. I don’t think that’s going to happen. But maybe, just maybe.  Okay, one last thing I want to get your thoughts on. This is her being asked — Clerk Lopez –by 9news about what her understanding was and her thoughts were on “vote early, vote often” in that flier.

AUIDO OF CLERK LOPEZ FROM A 9NEWS INTERVIEW [00:15:05] “You know, that flyer was mistake within our department. And as soon as we discovered what it said on that fire, we removed it and corrected it. My team is very young. I don’t even know if they would have caught that before in a proofreading to correct that. It’s an old 1920s phrase. I didn’t–.  I had to look it up to even know what that meant. So, yeah, we corrected the problem right away and sent out an apology. so–.”

SENGENBERGER [00:15:45] It was a 1920s phrase, you see. “Twenty-three, Ski-doo,” being among them, too. I think what’s puzzling to me — I mean, I’m 29 and I’ve known about that phrase for a long time. Maybe it’s because I’m a Republican and we use it as a joke, but I don’t get why she would say, “Oh, well, my staff is young. Chalk it up to that.”

STAIERT [00:16:06]  No, and, you know, at one point she says, “Oh! Well, as soon as we discovered what was on the flyer –.”  [laughing] Well, you made the flyer, I mean =-..

SENGENBERGER [00:16:16] All right. So where do you think all this goes?

STAIERT [00:16:20] Um, you know, I don’t know. It might end up in an election contest, depending on, you know, where those replacement ballots are. You know, I don’t know where this election goes. I think we continue to just spiral downward, if she is in charge.

SENGENBERGER [00:16:37] Yeah, I don’t know. I’m just == I’m watching this Aurora race, as a resident, with bated breath. Two hundred and eighty-one or so votes of a lead for Mike Coffman. And they’re doing a heck of a lot on the left to try and cure those ballots for Omar Montgomery, the Democrat leader in that race — so, the number two just behind Coffman. All right, Suzanne Staiert, former deputy secretary of state, we have got to run. But thanks so much for the call. [I] appreciate your time this evening and your good work on this.

STAIERT [00:17:04] Thanks, Jimmy.