Michael Scarpello has his work cut out for him.

The new Denver director of elections comes to a city plagued by voting problems over the past years, from phantom absentee ballots to hours-long lines at the polls.

But Scarpello said hitches with the election system didn't cool him to the job.

"I come to Denver with no preconceived ideas," said Scarpello, whose hiring was announced Monday.

Since 2004, Scarpello has been elections manager in Douglas County, Neb., which encompasses the city of Omaha.

The Nebraska county has about 300,000 registered voters and Scarpello said the elections system was antiquated.

"Douglas County was, like a lot of election jurisdictions, not organized that well," he said. "Elections ran themselves."

In his time there, Scarpello helped switch to new electronic voting equipment.

Scarpello also helped the Nebraska county implement a process for programming its own election equipment, rather than outsourcing the work. The change saves Douglas County about $200,000 a year.

In Denver, Scarpello will oversee elections involving more than 360,000 registered voters.

In November, Denver saw extremely long lines and voters being turned away at its 55 voting centers, thanks to problems with the system of checking voter IDs.

The laptops used for identification were slow and inefficient, and in some areas, there weren't nearly enough.

In 2004, voters were frustrated when they did not receive absentee ballots. In some early voting locations, voters faced waits of up to three hours.

coonsj@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5617