Sheri Davis vs Jim Oehler: The Douglas County Clerk and Recorder Race, and Why Amendment 84 Makes It Matter

The Clerk and Recorder is the county official you deal with most and think about least: the elections office, the motor vehicle counters, the recording of every deed in the county. This year the race has a second layer, because Amendment 84 would rewrite how the clerk verifies your mail ballot, and the person who wins this race would be the one doing it.

What the office does

Three divisions. Elections: voter registration, mail ballots for 300,000-plus voters, drop boxes, the Voter Service and Polling Centers, and the count. Motor vehicle: titles, registrations and plates at the county's offices. Recording: deeds, liens and every other document that establishes who owns what in Douglas County. It is an administrative office with an elected head, which is the source of the perennial argument about whether it should be partisan at all.

Sheri Davis, Republican

Davis was elected in 2022 after more than 25 years working in the office she now runs: eight years in recording, twelve in elections, five in motor vehicle. She is a certified election official in Colorado and holds the national Certified Elections and Registrations Administrator designation, and she is a fourth-generation Coloradan. Her campaign site, davis4clerk.com, bills her as a "champion for election integrity," cites a 97 percent customer-satisfaction rating and the office being first in Colorado to complete electronic recording, and lists her as co-chair of the State DMV Legislative Committee and a member of the Secretary of State's Rules Committee.

Her first term's biggest test came this month, when the commissioners' rewrite of Questions 200 and 1A went to court and her office told the judge that ballots for more than 300,000 voters were already at the printer. The court left the ballot alone. Her elections have not been controversial, which in a county where a slice of voters distrusts elections on principle is itself a record.

Jim Oehler, Democrat

Oehler is a lifelong Coloradan and a Douglas County resident of more than 20 years, with a technical journalism degree from Colorado State, engineering study at CU, and three decades designing media and communication systems. He sits on the advisory board for the strategic artificial intelligence program at CU Colorado Springs. His platform: secure, transparent, professionally run elections; "keep politics out of the election process"; voter education and outreach; better accessibility at the counters; accurate public records. His site does not list endorsements or a position on Amendment 84.

The Amendment 84 question

If voters approve Amendment 84, mail-ballot verification in federal and state elections would require the last four digits of a Social Security or driver's license number in addition to the signature match, with a new cure process. The clerk designs the envelope, retrains the judges, and runs the cure. We have not found a public position on 84 from either candidate, and it is the question that separates them in practice: a clerk who believes in the measure runs it one way, a clerk who thinks it is a solution to a problem the county does not have runs it another. Ask both.

What to watch

This is a row office, and row offices follow party registration unless something breaks the pattern. Davis has the record and the credentials; Oehler's argument is that the office should be nonpartisan and that he would run it that way. If the margin here is under ten points, the county has moved further than any top-of-ticket result would show. Our read on the county's row offices this year.

More: every race and measure on your ballot. We do not endorse candidates. Campaigns can send corrections to hello@discoverdougco.com.