Dear Editor,

Currently the City of Grand Junction is in campaign mode in search of the next batch of council members, having just completed the petition process the 27th of January.

I learned firsthand this week that it is nearly impossible to protest the petitions and affidavits of our city council candidates.

Having seen the petitions (redacted versions) for Cody Kennedy and Alexis Hitzeroth on social media, I downloaded them and started comparing them. It became quickly apparent that there are issues in the petition verification process at the city clerk’s office.

First off, per state statute titled 31-10-302 (5) Nomination of Municipal Officers, a person cannot sign petitions for multiple candidates in the same race. So, essentially in this instance, Cody submitted his petitions over a week earlier than Alexis began collecting signatures, and if there were any duplicates, the signer only counts toward the one that was signed first, in this case Cody.

The problem here is by visual inspection of the petitions, it is apparent that the clerk’s office stopped verification of signatures when it was apparent Cody had enough to make the ballot, leaving the names available. I’m not saying there were duplicates; however, this is one of the reasons people get as many signatures as possible, and the task needs to be completed.

Next is the petitions’ signatures themselves. There are specific things required to be filled out. For instance, the county (Mesa) must be written in by each registered elector, or the signature is rejected. Between the two candidates over 30 signatures were rejected by staff for various reasons, including missing the county.

However, there were 16 signatures between the two candidates that were missing the county that the city clerk and staff failed to catch and reject. In fact, on one of Alexis’s petitions, there were six in a row that the city clerk acknowledges that they “just missed” and accepted.

Another thing they “just missed” is that four of the six affidavits submitted by Alexis were notarized incorrectly.

Per the City of Grand Junction candidate guidelines and statute 31-10-302 (3), these affidavits are required. If you attempt to submit a petition without the affidavits signed and properly notarized, the city will not accept them until you provide the aforementioned documentation.

So, it would be safe to presume that the same rationale would be used if the petitions are accompanied by an incorrect notarized affidavit. A simple polite, “We cannot accept this, please return with the Affidavit notarized properly?” Nope, they missed it completely. They accepted the petitions and approved them in “apparent conformity with the provisions of section 31-10-302 as determined by the clerk.”

How do I know all this? I wanted an answer, so I filed a written protest. I stated that the forms were incorrectly notarized causing the documents to lose their official verification status, therefore invalidating the documents resulting in the failure to meet the requirements of candidacy. (Though, yes, Alexis is ultimately responsible for the forms she submits, this error resides solely on the shoulders of the notary).

Two days later I received a written response:

The complaint was untimely and without merit for the following reasons.

1) Timeliness: Pursuant to Colorado Revised Statutes 31-10-305, objections to nomination petitions must be submitted in writing within three days of the filing of the petition. Your complaint was filed well beyond this statutory deadline, making it untimely.

Three days? How is that even possible? Per the City of Grand Junction Candidate Guidelines, the Clerk has within five days to notify the candidate if the petition was even sufficient to make the ballot. The petitions, though public record, are not published by the city, and a Colorado Open Records Act request to get the petitions can take up to three days itself. Not to mention there is no record published when a petition is submitted, nor when the clerk approves them. In fact, all the clerk does is send a letter of sufficiency to the candidate and upload their photo onto the website. So, how do you know when the three days start?

2) Validity of Petition Determination: As required under C.R.S. 31-10-302(3), I reviewed the nomination petitions at the time of filing and determined they were in apparent conformity with legal requirements.

Two things to say on this one is that if it was in “apparent conformity with legal requirements,” shouldn’t the affidavits be correctly filled out? I asked via email after the fact where the timestamp was at, documenting when the petitions were received by the clerk, as I did not see them on the top of the page as is customary. The response was …

“If you look at the petition with the 2 at the top, there is a timestamp at the bottom, right-hand of the first page with JAN 27 2025 PM 3:39. We kept the petitions stapled disallowing us from timestamping at the top like we typically do (due to the thickness of the packet). I noticed the other two petition packets were not timestamped at the deadline, so I timestamped the other two packets at that time at the bottom of the first page of each. You will note that packets 1 and 3 have a timestamp of JAN 27 2025 PM 4:00 at the bottom-right of the first pages. All three packets were received before the deadline.”

So, of the three petitions only one has all the pages timestamped, including the affidavits.

3) Notarial Defect: While your complaint correctly identifies a defect in the notarization process, it does not allege fraud or any disqualifying interest on the part of the Notary. Under C.R.S. 24-21-526 of the Revised Uniform Law on Notarial Acts (RULONA), a defect in notarization alone does not invalidate the notarial act. The complaint does not contest the authenticity of the Candidate’s signature nor present evidence of fraudulent activity.

This is specifically listed by the Colorado Secretary of State as one of the most common mistakes made by a notary. And here is where we get into the legal weeds a bit. Not being an attorney, I researched and identified that Colorado notary law does not include a correction procedure to correct a notary error or mistake on a notarial certificate, and in multiple states it is illegal to correct a notarized document that has to be dated by a specific date after the fact. I did not find an answer either way for Colorado.

So, is it not big deal and can be fixed? Is it going to be left incorrect? Or is it illegal to correct? I still think my protest on the matter was valid. In researching before filing the protest, I did not find the statute that is referenced above by the clerk, and here is a snippet from that. The first part is specifically what the clerk is referencing and the next sentence I believe to be just as important.

Except as otherwise provided in section 24-21-504 (2), the failure of a notarial officer to perform a duty or meet a requirement specified in this part 5 does not invalidate a notarial act performed by the notarial officer. The validity of a notarial act under this part 5 does not prevent an aggrieved person from seeking to invalidate the record or transaction that is the subject of the notarial act.

So, yeah, the system is broken, vague, indirect answers, and no desire for correction or accountability.

I hope with a new city manager that there will be a renewed focus on accuracy and accountability.

– Kraig Andrews

Kraig Andrews is a former Grand Junction City Council member and former Mayor Pro-Tem.