The Boulder County Republicans have refused to certify this year’s election results, with party officials stating that their leadership saw “multiple, solvable vulnerabilities” within the county’s election.

“These vulnerabilities cast a shadow on Boulder County’s ballot return system using non-compliant dropbox surveillance and ineffective training for determining legal voter signatures through the signature verification process,” a news release earlier this month stated.

According to the release, Boulder County Republican canvass board member Theresa Watson reminded the board of a 2022 complaint filed with the Boulder County Clerk that “included specific evidence showing drop boxes in Boulder County did not have video surveillance that was compliant with state statute.”

Watson also claimed to have observed a “lack of proficient training” for signature verification judges.

Watson could not be reached for comment on this story. Amy Weinstein, chair of the Boulder County Democrats, also could not be reached.

But Mircalla Wozniak, communications manager for the Boulder County Elections Division, repudiated the county GOP’s allegations.

“There is nothing of substance in their claims,” she wrote in an emailed response. “Our 24-hour ballot drop boxes meet all the legal statutory requirements. And with the use of ballot tracking, most voters are signed up to get alerts about the status of their mail ballot and know when we have mailed, received back, and counted their ballot,” she wrote in an email.

“We believe their concerns around the signature verification process stem from the fact that the signature verification judges are to err on the side of the voter and only block signatures that are (a) clear mismatch, based upon training provided by the secretary of state.”

She also noted that all signature discrepancies that are not cured by voters are handed over to the district attorney for investigation, but no charges have ever been filed.“There is simply no evidence of any widespread voter fraud, mail ballot interception, or ballot box stuffing or any of the other claims you hear both at the state and national level,” Wozniak wrote.

Additionally, Wozniak pointed out that before Boulder County Elections had presented the results of the county’s risk-limiting audit, which is conducted at every election to look for discrepancies, the state GOP had already put out a news release calling on local representatives to refuse to certify results.

In that release, Ron Hanks, chair of the Colorado GOP’s Ballot and Election Security Committee, stated that since the 2020 election, “Nothing has changed to make elections more accurate and transparent, and the canvass board has been made irrelevant. So why should any Patriot certify such a rigged system?”

Hanks is a known 2020 election denier and former Colorado state representative who unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022.

It’s not clear whether the Boulder County Republicans’ refusal to certify the results was connected with Hanks’ statement. However, this is far from the first time the county GOP has declined to sign off on election results.

Wozniak said that in the last decade, there have been nine elections where a Republican member has refused to certify the results, and they have given varying reasons for declining.

In at least one previous election, the Boulder County Republicans disrupted the canvass board’s certification process through declining to have their members certify the results. But this year, Wozniak said, the GOP’s objections and refusal to sign will not impact the certification of the election results.

The Boulder County canvass board is the group responsible for certifying county election results and transmitting the certification to the secretary of state.

Currently, the canvass board consists of one Democratic representative, one Republican representative and the county clerk and recorder, and a simple majority of board members can vote to certify an election.