The Denver Election Commission has had more than its share of problems lately, and as I've written before, they deserve every last bit of criticism they have received since botching both the Primary and the General election in 2006. After the problems of the 2006 election season, Denver officials decided to call a "special" election to abolish the woefully ineffective Denver Election Commission (DEC). I'm not sure if ditching the DEC in favor of a single elected clerk and recorder is the right move, but I do know this: The current members of the DEC have got to go, one way or the other. As the Rocky Mountain News reported today, the election gods certainly have a sense of humor about the DEC's current predicament:

At least 3,500 ballots for Denver's upcoming special election were mailed to the wrong addresses. Officials identified the problem late last week and were able to fix it quickly, said Alton Dillard, communications director for the Denver Election Commission. New ballots are scheduled to be delivered today to the correct addresses. Any undelivered ballots will be returned to the commission. An error by a vendor, not the commission, caused the one-question mail ballot to be sent to some voters' physical addresses instead of mailing addresses, Dillard said.

Sure, it's the vendor's fault. The dog ate my ballot! Whatever. The bottom line is this: The DEC can't even effectively run an election about whether the DEC should be allowed to run an election. This story makes for great political irony, to be sure, but it also makes a pretty good case for why some sort of change - any change - is needed in Denver.