To learn how we produced the 2026 election Q&A, read here.

Resident of Colorado and Grand County since 2019.

Q: What experience best prepares you to manage the Clerk and Recorder’s Office? What are the three most important improvements you would pursue during your first year?

I have 15 years’ experience in public service as a project manager for complex, large-scale environmental initiatives, and 10 years as a small business owner. And the primary job of the clerk and recorder is to, first of all, follow the law, the revised statutes, the Colorado Constitution, the U.S. Constitution, and its an operational administration. As a project manager, I have experience in time-sensitive projects, and administering elections is a high-stakes, time-sensitive project. I feel that there are workflows as a project manager, you manage workflows, and when you see unreturned phone calls or frustrated customers, that’s a symptom of a broken workflow. And I know how to keep an office organized, efficient, and be responsive to customers, community members, just like I would run a project. And I understand how to communicate transparently and in a nonpartisan manner. 

So, the three improvements that I would make: the number one improvement I would make is to run elections competently and accessibly, transparently, outside of any partisanship. So running elections would be my number one priority, and increasing voter confidence. Voter confidence and election integrity start with a competent leader and competent leadership, and I have experience as an election official here in Grand County. And, as I said, years of private and public service, managing bid systems and where details and the ability to understand the law really matter. And I have the technical and administrative skills to run the clerk’s office securely and transparently, without outside contractors and state intervention. 

So, number one is building confidence in elections, which I just described. The second one is improving systems, and I have concrete zero-cost upgrades in mind through systems in the DMV, and they include more cross-training. I believe this keeps staff sharp and engaged in the office as a whole. And part of that would also be phones answered all day, whether this is using a dispatching system with actual staff or some type of automated dispatcher, and then coverage in every department all day. And I don’t expect every staff member to be an expert on everything, but they should be able to guide someone to the answer, and we need to have every staff member be able to tell someone something basic like how to register to vote or where to go find a liquor license application.

And number three thing would the third thing would be transparency. As clerk and recorder, you are the keeper of the board of county commissioners’ meeting minutes, and I will provide those promptly because I think that’s necessary for the public to know, on a real-time scale, what the issues are that the commissioners are discussing. And I want to fulfill CORA requests, which is the Colorado Records Act Requests, in an organized manner, and I’d like to include a regular Clerk’s Corner with public service information that can be published to the county website or the paper or the radio. And [when it comes to] transparency for elections, I want to invite the public into the process more easily, which they are, by statute, allowed to do, which includes easier access to post-election canvassing and the other statutory audits. And there’s also some options for creating a public portal for ballots, and there are several other counties that do this. And it would be I see this as beneficial if this was something that the people of Grand County wanted, because it would eliminate unnecessary formal records requests, which is cheaper and more efficient, and everyone could openly access and verify election integrity for themselves on this public portal.

Q: In your opinion, what are the most pertinent challenges facing the Clerk and Recorder’s Office today, and what would you do as Clerk and Recorder to solve them?

Well, I think that it’s voter confidence. And I think that it’s integral to communities, to strengthen communities and democracy, and I want to bring the county closer together. And when people trust the election process and understand that it’s all happening locally, and they feel that their vote matters, [then] we can truly strengthen our community. And I want to serve the people of Grand County. I want them to have a public servant that they feel they can trust and they can be proud of. And I’m patriotic, and I value the democratic process, and accessible and secure elections are essential to that. And after serving as an election official, I saw that there was that need that I could successfully fill.

Q: As Clerk and Recorder, what steps would you take to protect a citizen’s right to vote and their right to a fair election?

Well, a citizen’s right to vote is all about accessibility, and that means that any eligible voter can easily get their ballot, understand the issues and the candidates, vote [on] their ballot, and have an easy way to turn in their ballot. And the rules [of] Colorado’s election system already does this. They’ve built this gold standard system where all ballots are mailed to eligible active voters, and you can choose how you want to submit that ballot, whether it’s by mail or by drop box (which is my favorite and the one that I encourage people to do), or go to the vote center. And actually, that system of mailing ballots to all eligible active voters there’s broad satisfaction across the board, across party lines, with that accessibility. And in 2024 there was 87% support for our type of mail-in ballots, so they’ve really built this process that’s built to be as low friction as possible. Really, just understanding the processes is the number one thing. Understanding the law and having respect for all voters. And like I said before, the clerk’s office needs to be able to help someone register to vote, and they need to be ready to hand an eligible voter a ballot when asked, and they need to be able to help a voter with any voter registration or voting questions. And frankly, this isn’t happening right now, so it’s easy to say a lot of these things, but the implementation of them is really where you’re going to find excellence versus bare minimum.

Grand County’s geography can make accessing government services inconvenient, especially for residents who live far from Hot Sulphur Springs. How would you make the Clerk and Recorder’s services more accessible to residents throughout the county, including seniors, working families and those with limited internet access?

The one thing, I think, is that people are super busy and the cost of gas is extreme, and some people don’t have transportation. So really, if you do have to make it to the office, which sometimes you do, let’s make it a one-trip experience. Let’s already have somebody answering the phone when that person needs to figure out what they’re going to be required to present at the counter, right? And so, I think the lowest-hanging fruit is that people know what they need, that people are told what they need, to bring to the office to conduct their business, and that it’s very clear, so they don’t have to be driving across the county multiple times or catching the bus multiple times. So, people in this rural community, we’ve built in already in our community ways to help our neighbors, but let’s have that be one trip and not several because of misunderstandings.

There has been a kiosk placed in Safeway in Fraser for vehicle registration, and that’s helpful, and people have really appreciated that. But that’s on the east side of the county, and I think the west side could definitely use a similar type kiosk to bring that one service closer to them, and that’s just about — the state will provide those kiosks — you really have to go to bat for it and you know apply for that and let the state know that that’s something that would be helpful, especially for a very working-class community.

Q: How should the office publicly report significant operational or election-related mistakes without diminishing confidence in the election process?

That will be dictated by the Secretary of State, anytime there’s any slight concerns — this is what the previous clerk’s office did, and they’ve described this to me — anytime there was anything that was slightly outside of what the norm would be or what they were expecting, they would report that to the Secretary of State immediately. And the Secretary of State’s office is the arbitrator of how [the Clerk and Recorder’s Office] should handle that dissemination of information. 

And I think that keeping, obviously, a day-to-day — you’re not going to give the public a day-to-day accounting of every single thing that you do— but I think when there is an issue, if it’s brought forward as soon as possible, something that the public would need to know, that it happens as responsibly as possible. Which is to say, as soon as possible. You just build trust with that transparency. And if it’s something that its something that can be easily rectified, then that can be communicated to the public. I think it’s more dangerous to keep things hidden until they’re right in your face, and there’s an issue. 

And I think the most recent one of these is the ballot numbers, which were kept from the public, and also ballot numbers were seen during printing and then continued to go out into t into mailboxes against the state constitution.

Q: The forum included discussions about outside consultants and state assistance with Grand County elections. What level of outside support is appropriate for a county of our size, and how should taxpayers evaluate whether that support is necessary and cost-effective?

It’s the responsibility of the clerk to know the law and to administer elections under the law. Any time that they’re not compliant with that, there needs to be assistance from either a contractor or the Secretary of State’s office. The taxpayers cannot decide that. That’s part of the layered system of security of the elections process. And so the appropriate amount of oversight — So there have been seven elections under this clerk’s term, and none of them have been done independently without consultants. And [during] the first year, there [were] two people brought in: they were the previous county clerk and deputy clerk, and the intent was to train the clerk’s office; that was a new office. The previous clerk had been in the position for over 30 years, and so the intent was to train the clerk’s office and get them up to speed on what is admittedly a complicated process.

By the end of that time, the office had not learned anything, and so the consultants had to come back. These previous employees had to come back, and after that, they issued this report to the Secretary of State, stating the concerns and saying very little had been learned and there was still this inappropriate partisan environment. And while they were trying to maintain this compliance, they had viewed a ballot being thrown away, and this security camera that was required was not was not there at a new ballot box. There was a [forgery] of an election judge signature on a chain of custody, and there was a candidate left off the ballot. There was a wrong candidate on some of the ballots. So, this was after [the previous county clerk and deputy clerk] had come in, and the intent was training and then leaving. And so, if they still can’t run an election without assistance from the state four years and seven elections later, that seems to make me question why we’re paying this office to be run.

It’s something that I feel is so surprising that it has not been addressed at a higher level — that it’s extremely frustrating to discuss — because we haven’t seen any substantive improvements, and every election, they are left to their own devices, and eventually the Secretary of State office has to come in and consult.

Q: You described the ballot-numbering issue as a serious failure and criticized the office’s response. What specific procedures would you implement to prevent a similar problem, and how would you independently verify compliance before ballots are mailed?

This was somewhat of a shocking and unprecedented occurrence. I talked with other county clerks about this, and they had never heard of anything like this. The way I would avoid it is by close attention to the law, and an understanding of the law, and also an understanding that if something seems not correct, as I spoke about before, then to stop and regroup and contact who you need to contact for guidance, which would be the Secretary of State’s office. 

And so, I guess there’s two parts. One is that the numbers weren’t on there at all, and the second one is that they were aware the numbers were on there, and if this was a mistake, why were they still sent out? And that’s why I say that it’s not clear if it’s a misunderstanding of the law, an oversight or disregard for the law. I think this was a leadership issue. Where the buck stops is the clerk and recorder, and it was not caught by her. That could have stopped with her, and it didn’t.

It would be on my shoulders to know the law, and to follow through with being in compliance with the law.

Q: During the forum, you questioned the justification for replacing the previous Dominion Voting equipment and some of the costs associated with that decision. Now that the county has invested in Clear Ballot, would you retain the system if elected? What evidence would you require before considering another hypothetical change?

I will 100% keep the system — the Clear Ballot system. I have no preference for either Dominion or Clear Ballot, and those are the two certified voting systems used in elections across Colorado. And under Colorado law and guidelines, both systems are held to the exact same statutory standards, and they are equal in status. So, I’m happy to use either. I’ve seen both systems in use, and have attended audits of both of the systems, and they both operate securely and accurately. And the justification of the purchase of a new vendor was that they needed a modern, easy-to-use system. But the fact of that matter is that they had been given the opportunity to upgrade that system for free since 2023, but had been apparently refusing. 

So the selling point that it was upgraded is kind of a moot point, and upgrading the system was a statutory requirement. And the whole saga, Dominion versus Clear Ballot, is based on election denier lore from the 2020 presidential election. And it’s sad we’re still talking about it six years later, and the purchase of Clear Ballot was made after a partisan campaign promise. The end result is that it has undermined confidence in elections because the clerk used this conspiracy theory to recommend how to use our county funds, and I would never use any partisan beliefs to evaluate contracts or use of county funds.