Election Officials Helped Expose Bizarre City Council Forgery Case

DENVER (CBS4) - Prosecutors say Denver's election officials blew the whistle on a 44-year-old woman who was trying to land on last May's city ballot by forging signatures and using the identities of people who had died.

Corrie Houck, a Democrat, was trying to run for a city council seat in Denver's southwest district in 2015.

Houck's first petition to be on the ballot was declined on a technicality. She was then told she had one day to gather the required 100 valid signatures that are needed for candidates to be allowed on.

Houck now faces charges including forgery and perjury in the election fraud case.

"There are signatures of real people and real voters that were forged, and there were also the names and forged signatures of people who have died," said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for Denver's district attorney's office.

Houck admitted to the Denver Elections Division some signers had tricked her by using the names of Sesame Street characters instead of their actual names, but she made no mention of the other identities prosecutors accuse her of forging or reviving from the dead in her attempt to get into city politics.

"She had to sign off on them as being the person who collected the signature and that to the best of her knowledge these were registered voters and vaild signatures," Kimbrough said.

Elections officials reviewing the petition checked handwriting samples and had to make calls to the families of people who had died to confirm that they were deceased.

There is now a warrant for Houck's arrest and authorities are asking that she turn herself in.

Officials at the DA's office say it's unlikely Houck will serve time in prison on the charges she faces because she has a clean criminal record up until this point.

Houck has tried to get into politics before. She lost a primary for a seat in the Colorado House of Representatives in 2012.