The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is investigating the makeup of Boulder County’s election judge teams after allegations that county officials stacked the ranks of mail-in ballot watchers with Democrats, including some posing as Republicans.

Boulder County GOP Chairwoman Ellyn Hilliard is recruiting new election judges because, she said, the county clerk’s office failed to assemble a bipartisan team to verify signatures on mail-in ballots for the Nov. 4 election.

Hilliard also said she witnessed some election judges approving signatures on mail-in ballots that did not match those of the voters.

Boulder County officials, for their part, said they did all they could to recruit Republicans to serve as election judges, but very few volunteered, and all signatures that are questionable are thoroughly reviewed.

What was scheduled as a rally to support Republican U.S. Senate candidate Cory Gardner on Tuesday at the party’s Boulder headquarters quickly became an emotional recruiting effort to find new Republican election judges amid the allegations.

Deputy Secretary of State Suzanne Staiert confirmed Tuesday night that state election officials visited the Boulder clerk’s office and found some troubling inconsistencies with some election judges.

“One of them was a Democrat who had changed party affiliation on Oct. 10, so we are concerned that Boulder didn’t follow the list, then resorted to advertising for these positions,” said Staiert, a member of Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler’s staff.

Staiert said state statute mandates that the ranks of election judges be equally split between Democrats and Republicans appointed by the party chair in their county. She said the law does provide leeway for county clerks’ offices to appoint judges who are unaffiliated or from other parties if they have “made reasonable efforts” to appoint people from the original lists.

She said her office plans to run Boulder County’s election judge roster through its voter database to see who is registered with what party and what their party registration history may be.

“We are concerned about the numbers, and we are concerned that people switched parties simply to serve as judges,” Staiert said. “We’re looking into it, and we will continue to work with the county and the chair so they can have confidence in the election.”

About 120 people packed into the tiny office space at 1615 Folsom St. on Tuesday afternoon to meet Rep. Gardner, R-Yuma, who is running against incumbent Democrat Mark Udall for the Senate.

Before Gardner arrived, Hilliard addressed the crowd about procedures she said she witnessed at the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder’s Office that would help “the Democrats steal the election.”

Hilliard said that when she visited the clerk’s office this week to observe the mail ballot verification process, she did not recognize many of the election judges who county officials claimed represented the Republican party in the bipartisan process. She said several appeared to be Democrats with Republican nametags.

She said she also saw judges approving signatures that, from her perspective, were clearly not those of the voters to whom those ballots were issued.

“I’m sorry,” Hilliard said at one point, tears welling up in her eyes. “I get emotional because this is how they win.”

Hilliard implored the crowd to volunteer or find others who could volunteer to take over as the county’s Republican election judges, asking anyone who is available Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to attend a training session at the Boulder County clerk’s office, 1750 33rd St., beginning at 9:30 a.m. Saturday.

Molly Tayer, Boulder County elections coordinator, said that, following her party’s caucus in the spring, Hilliard provided a list of people who were willing to serve as election judges, but few of them agreed to do so when contacted about training for the positions as the election approached.

“Her original list was 95, and only five (of those) have joined this year’s workforce,” Tayer said. “We performed repeated outreach to the Republicans’ list: emails, notes, calls. We exhausted the list and as much as we reached out to them, people did not come. After that, we just moved on to getting people to do this work.”

She had not heard the allegations of Democrats posing as Republicans until Tuesday.

Tayer said about 245 people are working as election judges and poll watchers at the county’s voter service centers and mail ballot dropoff locations. Of those, about 100 are registered Democrats, and roughly 78 are Republicans, she said. The rest are either unaffiliated or Green Party voters.

“We’re on the same side. We both want bipartisan election judges working on our processes together,” Tayer said of Hilliard’s complaint. “We told her that if she could find people from her caucus list that wanted to do the work, she could bring those people on, and we thanked her very much for doing that.”

Gardner pumped his base with an energetic speech. His message was simple: Boulder may be a liberal stronghold, but every GOP vote counts in a Senate race where he holds a healthy lead in the polls over the Democratic incumbent, Udall.

“Leave no door unknocked; leave no phone uncalled,” he said. “Let’s have less Washington in Colorado, and more Colorado in Washington.”

Joe Rubino: 303-473-1328, rubinoj@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/rubinojc