“We’re doing this because of transparency: we want to build understanding of the system. And to do that, I think that builds confidence in the system,” Montrose County Clerk and Recorder Tressa Guynes said. “We’re doing this because we want you to understand this piece of the process.”

Attendees were from multiple sides of the political spectrum, from outspoken election security skeptics active in the local GOP, to Montrose County Democratic Party Chairman Kevin Kuns.

One of the people in attendance was Gerald “Jerry” Wood, a software engineer from Mesa County whose identity was allegedly stolen by embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters in May 2021.

Peters allegedly asked Wood to do some security work and he was photographed for an ID badge, but he was never officially hired by Mesa County to do any work, according to an indictment filed in March.

Wood testified to the grand jury that he was not present in May 2021 when election equipment was breached and photos were taken that later leaked online, which was corroborated. Peters allegedly used his ID badge to enter a secured election area and introduced another man as Wood.

Criminal impersonation and identity theft in reference to Wood are two of the 10 charges filed against Peters in the indictment.

Wood declined to comment on the Peters situation in a follow-up call with the Montrose Daily Press Friday, but said that he was interested in attending because he’s interested in election integrity.

Montrose election officials have conducted multiple audits of the election results beyond the extensive checks required by state and federal law, including commissioning another election company, Clear Ballot, to retabulate the 2020 counts.

The audits, as well as members of the public on Thursday, did not find any substantial evidence of machine error or fraud in Montrose.

A team of people volunteered to review random 2020 ballots selected and compare them with the machine’s record of votes displayed on a television screen purchased for this event.

The recorded data matched up with the ballots called every time.

“I think this has been highly educational in knowing how you do it,” Wood said, “but it is highly dependent on a clerk being diligent and doing the whole process and not cutting corners.”

Wood clarified that he is confident that this particular part of the voting process is conducted in Montrose County, but has concerns about other potential holes in the system.

Guynes said that she had notified the Secretary of State’s office of the public audit.

Guynes and her staff have been fielding calls and visits from people skeptical of the election systems, sometimes talking for hours at a time about the safeguards in place to ensure election security.

A group of people asked Montrose County commissioners to defund their contract with Dominion Voting Systems earlier this year, but commissioners did not act on that.

At a work session in April and the event Thursday, Guynes, as well as Commissioner Keith Caddy, urged the crowd to focus on questions about Montrose County’s systems and not other places in the country.

Discussion first centered on the cast vote record audit, but slid into other election security concerns over the course of the multi-hour event.

Guynes said that in 2020, other states implemented mail-in ballots without the same, thorough process as Colorado, but lauded the state system for its accuracy. Ballots have been mailed to every state voter since 2013.

No substantial evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election has surfaced. Dozens of lawsuits filed by former President Trump’s allies have failed in court.

Trump won Montrose County in 2020 by a wide margin, but Colorado’s nine electoral college votes went to Joe Biden. More than 88% of eligible voters in Montrose participated in the election, which was 25,159 ballots. (Less than half of eligible voters cast ballots in the November 2021 school board race and voter turnout was just over 26% for the municipal election in April.)

Guynes said that more people than average voted in-person in the November 2020 election — rates are usually less than two percent, but surged to approximately seven percent.

Republican voters also tended to turn in their ballots until election day, whereas Democratic voters tended to cast ballots earlier.

An influx of ballots on election day “slam dunked” workers in 2020, Deputy Clerk Kim Wright said: they emptied the full dropbox by the courthouse, processed the ballots and came back to another full box.

“It was crazy,” Wright said.

Jason Brown, who was hired as the new supervisor of elections a few months ago, said that he used to drop his ballot off on election day “because I’m old timey, that’s what I felt like I should do.”

“After working here for a while, I would encourage you to drop them off earlier, because that makes our life easier,” Brown said.

Election staff can start processing the ballots as they start receiving them, but they are not counted until after 7 p.m. on election day.

Guynes explained that code is written into election software that blocks officials from counting until after the polls close.

“When I first became clerk, it was surprising how many people came to me — I had a commissioner come to me and say, ‘It’s just me, can you tell me who’s winning?’ and I said, ‘You can’t do that,’” Guynes recalled. “First of all, I wouldn’t do that. But second, I can’t do that because the system doesn’t let me.”

Anna Lynn Winfrey is a staff writer for the Montrose Daily Press.