Elections Department Time Capsule

On August 18, 2020, nearly 50 members of the Jefferson County League of Women Voters gathered at the Jefferson County Courts and Administration Building (the "Taj") in Golden to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.

The event took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and the run-up to the 2020 General Election. As a result of the pandemic, the event was outside, with all participants wearing facemasks and maintaining at least 6 feet of distance from each other. It was the first public event most attendees had been to since March of 2020 when local and statewide lockdowns had begun. The 2020 General Election also impacted the event, as President Donald Trump was consistently casting doubt on the integrity of the election during his campaign, before any voting had begun and without any evidence. The president often specifically targeted mail-in voting. At the time, Colorado was one of the only states that had universal vote by mail, a system the non-partisan League of Women Voters supported in the state.

As part of the event, Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder George Stern, whose office oversaw all elections in the county at the time, spoke to the group. Stern recognized the work the League had done for more than 100 years to expand the right to vote, and urged members to continue that work for at least another 100 years, especially in light of recent verbal attacks on Colorado and other states' voting systems. To help the members think in a broader historical scope, Stern asked each attendee to write down "what you want to tell to a voter a hundred years from now." His office then asked the League members to put those pieces of paper in a 100-year-old Jefferson County ballot box that the Clerk's office had brought to the event, and promised to store those notes until 2120 for opening.