This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
A shining example of good governance and leadership has termed out in Boulder County. Hillary Hall’s twelve years as county clerk comes to an end this year.
Hall has served during tumultuous times. Before she was elected she was already in the leadership of her party. As chair of the Boulder Democrats, Hillary had a seat at the table in ballot access discussions. She made herself well informed and educated others.
A result of the 2000 Bush-Gore election was the Help America Vote Act, a broad swipe at bringing voting technologies forward from the 1960s. Boulder, as well as most of Colorado, was not experiencing any of the ballot issues they had in eastern states. Nevertheless, by federal mandate all balloting systems would be altered to follow new federal standards, yet to be created. When elected, Hall knew that she was riding a wave of change in elections.
The clerk of any county in Colorado has much more to deal with than just elections. Registering vehicles is by far the most frequent cause of visits to the clerk. The clerk’s office also holds all the official records of title transactions, deeds of trust, and marriages in the county. Other than managing these key areas, the clerk manages all of the people doing the work. Many of the workers are career civil servants with decades longer on the job than someone just elected. The responsibility for holding it all together falls on the elected clerk.
Elections are really where Hillary signed on. It was a relief to voters, but an immediate hardship on a tech startup of her own. It wasn’t a job she was seeking, but was encouraged and challenged by friends. The chain of events that brought Hillary into office was exciting and she rolled with it.
In 2003 members of a committee representing parties and independent voters worked to select new voting equipment. But we were an advisory committee and the county commissioners did not take our advice. They purchased a system that was just recently replaced, but not without millions in expenditures over years to make it work properly and be legally compliant. Among the improper and unconstitutional things that the system did, was to require bar codes printed in the ballots margins. With proper access, a system operator could trace a cast ballot to the voter. From the outset as she took office, Hillary worked to replace this ballot machinery. In her last term she succeeded.
The 2004 election took over sixty hours to count and prompted a commission investigation. Over six months a group of nine local voters attended to testimony and fact finding providing documentation and a final report with advisements. Hall and I both served on that commission with never a dull moment.
We can be thankful that our county is full of active voters as well as technologists. Members of our group learned from each other and technology-smart voters. The number of intersecting known failures had created the proverbial train wreck. We identified many more potential disasters. If our advisements were to be ignored, one could be certain of a recurrence. Above all, missing from our elections here and everywhere, were audits. Elections managers were unable to understand or identify errors until much after the fact.
The troubles of the '04 election returned in subsequent elections. Causes range from optical deformities in ballot printing, improper training, paper dust, static control, memory stick failures, and unexplained software changes. In an evolving field such as this, Hillary jumped in.
In 2006 Hillary ran for clerk and won in the primary against the incumbent. She had been up close and involved in knowing how elections had worked in the past and present. She was ready for the future. She easily won an election against an incumbent Democrat in an exceptionally odd race for this county.
In her time as our clerk, Hall has seen many things happen in the realm of elections. She has been a pioneer in new methods and machinery. The way our clerk audits our elections isn’t unique, because other jurisdictions are using Hall’s work as an example.
Managing all this could have kept Hillary away from politics. On the 5th day of summer in 2014, she lit up the Attorney General by allowing same-sex marriages. Lit me up too, with joy.
Hillary claims this is the best job she ever had. She has done it very well. There are other things that she will do well after this. Hillary Hall has a classy resume from these past twelve years.
