WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Colorado authorities are investigating an incident in which at least 12 mail-in ballots appear to have been intercepted before reaching voters who wanted to receive them, according to a statement from the state’s top elections official on Thursday.
According to the Colorado Secretary of State, the intercepted ballots for the Nov. 5 election were completed and sent to the county clerk in Mesa County, in the western part of the state.
It was not stated whether they were marked for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris or another candidate.
The apparent voting fraud was discovered after some affected voters received notifications that their ballots had been processed or needed to be corrected due to a discrepancy with their signature, the statement said.
Several of the affected voters contacted the county clerk’s office to report the issue. The Public Prosecution Service is investigating.
“Colorado’s elections are secure. This attempted fraud was quickly discovered and investigated thanks to all of the groundbreaking processes and tools Colorado has in place, such as signature verification, ballot tracking and the healing process,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in the statement.
Trump and his allies have consistently spread baseless claims that mail-in ballots are vulnerable to fraud. In the run-up to this election, he has urged his supporters to vote early if they wish, but has continued to suggest that mail-in ballots are unreliable.
A former Mesa County clerk was sentenced to nine years in prison early this month for illegally tampering with voting machines after the 2020 election.
Harris is expected to easily win Colorado in the Nov. 5 election, according to the three major U.S. independent election review services.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward; Editing by Scott Malone and Marguerita Choy)
