(Colorado Newsline) Two Mesa County women were arrested Wednesday for allegedly stealing mail ballots and fraudulently casting them ahead of the general election.

One of the women, Vicki Lyn Stuart, is a carrier for the United States Postal Service.

Stuart, 64, and Sally Jane Maxedon, 59, were arrested on suspicion of forgery, identity theft and attempting to influence a public servant, according to arrest affidavits.

Maxedon is registered Republican and Stuart is an unaffiliated voter, according to voter records provided to Colorado Newsline.

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The two allegedly conspired to “test” the county’s signature verification system, which is used to match a voter’s signature on their ballot envelope with the one in official records. Maxedon said she obtained “six or seven” ballots from Stuart, who substituted on Oct. 12 on the mail delivery route associated with the stolen ballots.

Maxedon told an investigator she filled out the ballots, forged the signature on the envelope and gave them back to Stuart.

Last month, local and state election officials said they identified at least 12 fraudulent ballots in the case. Three made it through the signature verification process and were irrevocably counted. There were more than 94,600 ballots cast in Mesa County this year.

The affidavit estimates there are at least 20 victims. Prosecutors list 16 known victims.

The signature verification process led to detection of the fraudulent ballots, election officials said. When they reached out to voters to fix discrepancies between the signature on the ballot envelope and the one on file, the voters said they hadn’t received or cast a ballot. That triggered the investigation.

Investigators found Maxedon through a fingerprint on a ballot that matched one in a law enforcement database.

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Mesa County Clerk Bobbie Gross, a Republican, said the office did not open the suspect ballots and gave them to the district attorney’s office.

“I am deeply grateful for the diligence and thorough efforts of the District Attorney’s Office in addressing this matter. I am proud our security measures are effective, and we will remain vigilant to safeguard the integrity of our elections,” she said in a statement.

This type of ballot fraud is rare. About one mailbox ballot crime is committed per year in Mesa County, according to the affidavit, usually in the form of a family member casting a relative’s ballot.

Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein declined to comment. Officials did not disclose how the ballots were filled out.

Mesa County was the site of a previous election security breach that attracted national attention. The county’s previous clerk, Republican election denier Tina Peters, was sentenced last month to almost nine years in prison on felony convictions related to her role in the 2021 breach.

Quentin Young contributed to this report.

Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Colorado Newsline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Quentin Young for questions: info@coloradonewsline.com. Follow Colorado Newsline on Facebook and X.