Denver Democrats have a problem: 172 of the delegates and alternates they elected at Super Tuesday caucuses appear to be ineligible.

Some showed up at the wrong precinct. Most of them weren’t even registered Democrats.

“A couple people were Republicans. A couple people were Green Party,” said Jennifer Coken, who chairs the Democratic Party of Denver. “It’s been kind of nerve-racking for us.”

Republicans getting elected as Democratic delegates is just part of the confusion that accompanied an overwhelming turnout at precincts throughout Colorado.

Two weeks after the vote, state party chair Pat Waak cannot say exactly how many eligible Democrats took part in the record-breaking caucuses. Only one-third of the counties have turned in audited totals.

Others are still scrambling to separate eligible from ineligible voters before Democratic delegates begin meeting in county conventions, the next step toward the selection of Colorado delegates to the 2008 presidential convention in Denver.

The problem showed up — though in smaller numbers — in counties across Colorado.

“We had a few, but our number was more like 20,” said Boulder County chair Deborah Gardner. About half of those had not lived in the precinct long enough, “and about half were non-Democrats.”

El Paso County party chairman John Morris said the party had to toss about 25 delegates and alternates who were in the wrong precinct, registered as unaffiliated voters or not registered at all. In most cases, “people were excited and wanted to get involved and just showed up,” he said.

Waak and other party officials emphasized that on a percentage basis, the number of ineligible caucus voters appears to be minuscule and should not affect the ultimate number of Colorado delegates snared by Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton at the convention. Obama overwhelmingly won the state with 66 percent of the vote to Clinton’s 32 percent.

Waak said that roughly 120,000 people, a record, showed up for Democratic caucuses, and she expects the number of ineligible participants to be less than a thousand.

On the bright side, Democrats can be pleased “that people are so interested that they would lie about their party affiliation,” Waak said. Party officials also say many ineligible voters made an honest mistake.

“Most of these people were unaffiliated voters, and some of them didn’t know that,” said Jennifer Jacobson, director of operations for Denver Democrats. “They said they voted for Democrats their whole lives. They didn’t know they hadn’t affiliated with a party.”

In Iowa and Nevada, Democrats can register on caucus day. In Colorado, a “closed caucus” state, law requires participants to register with a party by Dec. 5, 2007, and live in their precinct for a month.

At the county level, tabulating Colorado caucus votes is a time-consuming effort performed by party volunteers. They take handwritten results from informal precinct gatherings in homes and school classrooms and enter them all into a computer file that identifies participants, delegates and alternates.

And while Colorado Republicans excluded people whose names didn’t appear on the list that came from the county clerk’s office, Colorado Democrats offered an option that complicated the count. Would-be participants could sign a statement swearing they were eligible, and the party would check later.

Colorado statutes state that “any person who fraudulently participates and votes in a precinct caucus, assembly, or convention when he is not a member of the political party … is guilty of a misdemeanor.”

Waak said she believes that law requires her to turn over the names of ineligible caucus voters to district attorney’s offices for possible prosecution.

Republicans had an official state total of 70,229 participants the next day, party chairman Dick Wadhams said, but “there were some cases where there were people who were not on the list who should have been.”

Democrats had the opposite problem.

In Denver, the number of voters who showed up at Democratic caucuses jumped from 2,628 in 2004 to 26,096 on Super Tuesday. They chose 3,032 delegates and 3,032 alternates to attend their county convention on March. 8, Jacobson said.

But according to Denver Election Commission records, 119 of the delegates and alternates are not registered Democrats, she said, and 53 “caucused in a location other than their precinct.”

All 172 will be challenged, but they get an opportunity to prove the city records wrong at a Monday night meeting at Denver party headquarters. To qualify, “they have to bring in a certified copy of their voter registration,” Jacobson said.

Because Denver concentrated its efforts on ineligible delegates, Jacobson expects it will be weeks before the local party can check the eligibility of all the others who signed affidavits and voted in the caucuses.

“There were a lot,” she said, “maybe close to a thousand.”

David Olinger: 303-954-1498 or dolinger@denverpost.com

