A state-ordered recount has confirmed that three votes separated the Republican contenders in a primary last month in southwest Colorado’s House District 58, where more than 370 mail ballots were not delivered to voters in one county ahead of Election Day.
The Secretary of State’s Office confirmed Larry Don Suckla’s razor-thin margin over J. Mark Roeber in a news release Tuesday, a month after the June 25 primary.
Suckla will now advance to the November election against Democrat Kathleen Curry, who served in the House more than a decade ago.
The seat is currently occupied by Republican Rep. Marc Catlin, who’s running for the state Senate. The House race is considered a relatively safe Republican seat, according to a nonpartisan state redistricting analysis of past election results.
The race was marred by state election officials’ confirmation that 376 mail ballots were not delivered to voters in Dolores County, which is fully within the House district, by Election Day. The ballots apparently were lost between being loaded on a U.S. Postal Service truck at the print vendor’s facility in Seattle and their scheduled delivery to an Albuquerque mail facility.
More than 100 voters in the county requested replacement ballots, a 10-fold increase from the normal amount.
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A secretary of state spokesman said Tuesday that the agency had no update on the lost ballots. Postal service spokesman James Boxrud said in an email that the agency was “reviewing the situation with the Colorado Secretary of State to resolve going forward.”
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