Anthony Rainey said Denver’s problems on Election Day were to be expected, and he’s right. How could Denver’s most high-tech election go smoothly with Rainey in charge of the technology? Here’s a look at Rainey’s history with the Denver Election Commission.
2001: Rainey lies about his experience on a resume he submitted for a job with the city of Denver. He claims to have been Denver Health’s chief information officer, but he actually worked in the hospital as a tech consultant and middle-manager for a different company called Interlink. He isn’t hired.
May 2003: Rainey gets a job with the commission as an on-call administrative support assistant. It’s been suggested Rainey was recruited by the commission’s former executive director, Karon Hatchett, because they were friends and fellow churchmembers.
March 2004: Rainey is hired full-time as the commission’s technology chief.
March 2005: City Council aide Lynn Pressnall gave a letter to Mayor Hickenlooper stating Rainey was unqualified for the tech chief position, had threatened employees and was driving away qualified workers. June, 2006: Amid doubts of Rainey’s expertise, John Gaydeski, executive director of the commission, defends him. Rainey again claims to have been the CIO for Denver Health.
Nov. 2, 2006: Wayne Vaden, the recently resigned Denver Clerk and Recorder, brought two city tech experts to help Rainey ensure the high-tech election goes smoothly. “But soon after they arrived, Vaden heard Rainey yelling at the tech experts, demanding they leave.” Rainey insisted the city experts didn’t know anything about Sequoia Voting Systems software.
Nov. 7, 2006: Election Day in Denver is a disaster. The electronic poll book used to look up voter registration repeatedly crashes and is agonizingly slow, causing hours-long lines and an unknown number of voters to give up and leave the polls.
Nov. 9, 2006: Rainey brushes off criticism over Denver’s election problems, calling the glitches with Sequoia’s computerized poll book “normal,” and saying, “There’s no perfect software out there.”
Nov. 11, 2006: Rainey is placed on “administrative investigative leave.”
Read Colorado Confidential’s coverage of Rainey and the DEC:
Denver Clerk and Recorder Resigns
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