GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) – Two women are behind bars today in Mesa County, accused of stealing Mesa County ballots, tampering with them and fraudulently submitting them for counting.

Sally Jane Smith, 59, and Vicki Lyn Stuart, 64, are charged with identity theft, attempting to influence a public official and forgery for their involvement in an alleged scheme to “” testing” of the vote signature system for ballots used in elections,” according to the arrest affidavit. Their purpose, according to the affidavit, was to see if forged signatures would be caught by the verification process.

The documents state victims are still being traced and confirmed, but there may be 20 or more victims of the alleged scheme.

The two women were tracked down because several of the allegedly falsified ballots fell along the same mail delivery route — a route that was confirmed to be temporarily assigned to Stuart. The documents also said Stuart was interviewed by DA lead investigator Rob Heil, where he confirmed Stuart was the person who allegedly delivered the ballots on that route.

Investigators also found that Stuart’s GPS location showed her at known victim homes on Oct. 12 — the day the affected ballots were due. Smith’s fingerprints were also found on a ballot by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation — a ballot they wouldn’t normally have access to because investigators discovered she was never employed by USPS or Elections from Mesa County.

Arrest documents show that law enforcement eventually contacted Smith at her home. During the subsequent interview, Smith allegedly admitted to filling out ballots that were not hers. She initially claimed she was given the ballots by a man working at the CBI whom she “randomly met in a parking lot,” according to the affidavit. She claimed the man asked her to help test the voting system, to which Smith responded by filling out ballots in her truck and returning them to the man. “(Smith) even hand drew a map of where she met the CBI male at Mesa Mall and (she) pointed out where (she) parked,” according to the affidavit.

However, she eventually admitted to investigators that she knew Stuart and that she had not been completely honest with the investigator, documents show, that she was trying to protect Stuart. The affidavit states that Smith then admitted to the investigator that he obtained the ballots from Stuart just as the ballots began arriving in Grand Junction mailboxes.

Stuart was contacted by law enforcement around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday and allegedly said something along the lines of, “You want to put me in jail just because I mishandled some mail?”

Mesa County Elections has successfully identified and prevented fraudulent vote-by-mail attempts through our signature verification process. We immediately reported this to the 21 Judicial Prosecutor’s Office, which resulted in two arrests today.

I am deeply grateful for the diligence and thorough efforts of the District Attorney’s Office in addressing this matter. I am proud that our security measures are effective and we will remain vigilant to protect the integrity of our elections.

I am committed to transparency and accountability at every step of the election process so Mesa County voters can trust that their ballots are safe.

Stuart and Smith are both currently being held in the Mesa County Detention Center on pending charges. Relationships have not yet been established for either woman.

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