In what seems like a bizarre turn of events in the wake of Denver’s problematic election this past November, stories are circulating today about a letter that apparently the USPS district manager in the Denver area sent to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, criticizing both Denver and Sequoia Voting Systems for problems with absentee balloting in the January 2007. Here’s a story from the Denver Post.

There is some interesting data in the Denver Post story, providing some statistics on the quality of the voter registration list used in Denver:

More than 10 percent of the nearly 300,000 ballots sent out for Denver’s Jan. 30 mail-in election were returned, calling into question the accuracy of the city’s voter registration list.

About 30,000 ballots sent to Denver voters have been returned as undeliverable, commission spokesman Alton Dillard said. An additional 3,500 ballots were sent out to wrong addresses – an error the commission blamed on a vendor.

Dillard said the delivery problems stem from the rush to schedule the mail-in election and the decision not to purge the rolls of inactive voters after the November election.

Given that little is known about the quality of voter registration lists, it is hard to evaluate a 10% inaccuracy rate, but it does seem high.

I suspect we’ll have more to say about this, especially once Paul gets a chance to weigh in here and we get some additional information on what is happening in this election.