Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul López’s first brush with public service came when he was only 13 years old.

After his mother dragged him to community meetings about renaming a local elementary school after civil rights activist Richard Castro, López went to work. He went door-to-door advocating for the name change to his neighbors and helping them register to vote.

“We were successfully able to rename the school and it got me out of my shell,” López said. “I just fell in love with it.”

López went on to graduate from West High School and began community organization in college, working with the Westside Outreach Center to fight for things like affordable housing, healthcare and stop signs in neighborhoods. From there, he trained as a union organizer in Chicago, eventually representing Denver janitors for five years.

At 28 years old, López was elected to represent District Three on the Denver City Council — a position he held until July 2019. Immediately after leaving the council, López began his current role as Clerk and Recorder.

López is the first Latino elected as Denver’s Clerk and Recorder since the position became an elected office in 2007.

Halfway through his first term, exactly two years after he assumed office, López sat down with The Denver Gazette to discuss his time in the position.

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What made you want to run for Clerk and Recorder?

Before I was a councilman, I would do voter registries and a lot of community organization with voter registration. With the Westside Outreach Center, Colorado Progressive Coalition and what would become Mi Familia Vota, we would organize at schools getting people registered to vote and notifying them of upcoming elections. That’s the work I fell in love with from the get-go. That power of the ballot box and our ability to use it to create change.

In this democracy, casting a ballot is the bare minimum. There’s a lot you can do to have an impact, you don’t have to be a registered voter to participate in this democracy. Our young people still have a roll, our new Americans still have a roll, the city matters to them. So, we’ve made sure we’re not just focusing on people who are regularly coming to the polls, but we’re expanding access to neighborhoods that didn’t have access to a ballot box. We increased the number of drop boxes in our city right out of the gate and we’ll continue to expand that access. You have to go to the people, and we have a fully staffed civic engagement program that is doing that. Expanding that access, that’s why I ran for Clerk and Recorder and that’s what we’re doing.

What does it mean to you to be the first elected Latino Clerk and Recorder?

I think the same thing that Vice President Kamala Harris famously said, it’s one thing to be the first, but we cannot be the last. It’s an honor, especially coming from the westside given the challenges and obstacles I’ve had to overcome as someone growing up in poverty and as a Mexican American. But it’s also a responsibility to show we can do this as good as a clerk who isn’t Mexican American. I was speaking to a classroom and some of the responses from the kids were, “it’s good to see someone like me doing what you do.” It shouldn’t be a feat; it shouldn’t be something special. It should be a normal expectation because you can’t be what you can’t see.

I think the fact that I’m homegrown and I’m from these neighborhoods and this city has equipped me with some of these skills as clerk. Whether someone is Mexican or African American or white or poor or not, it’s about equality and it’s about equity and having that same access to democracy. Your zip code should not determine your future or your potential.

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How would you describe the last two years as Clerk and Recorder?

There has been no more relevant or critical time to be a Clerk and Recorder. In the last two years, we’ve had a pandemic and we’ve had a battle of misinformation coming all the way from the White House. We’ve had to keep the facts out there and keep educating people about why it’s important to vote and that it’s safe and transparent and secure. This past election was the most secure election in U.S. history. We were literally up against a tidal wave of misinformation and a tidal wave of the pandemic while fighting to protect this democracy.

The last two years, on the election side, have been about that. There are other functions we’ve been working on as well. The four functions of my office are elections, county public trustee, county recording and marriages and city clerk.

As public trustee, that has to do with the foreclosure process and making sure it’s fair and transparent, and the people of Denver understand how to navigate such a difficult, complex, intimidating process. The same effort we’ve used on elections with community outreach is what we’ve been doing for that. On the recording side with county licenses and marriages, those are essential functions of our government that have to continue, even through a pandemic. We had to figure out how to stay open. We took it all online, all remote within three days. The fourth function, our city clerk team, is maintaining all city contracts, ordinances, charter, municipal codes, open records requests. The first thing I did as city clerk was ask for a full audit. In that, was a complete overhaul of our campaign finance system to modernize the way we organize campaign finance.

It’s a lot of work. It’s a trial by fire, trial by pandemic, trial by political fire. It’s been challenging, but I couldn’t have asked for a better time to have assumed this role.

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What are some of your goals moving forward?

One of the main challenges I saw during my campaign is not many people understand what we do. These functions are critical so it’s incumbent upon us to be able to communicate what we do. People have to understand the process of elections enough, so they feel confident knowing it’s a secure, transparent function. So, we’ll continue to communicate that.

Another challenge is the lies and misinformation we had to battle, especially with keeping our staff safe and healthy, physically and mentally. These are people doing their civic duty and, after a long days’ work, to go home and turn on the TV and be vilified. These actions are going to take years for us to undo, but we have a great team and a great vision. It’s a lot of work, especially coming from a city council role, especially for a kid from the westside, but we’re doing it with the same excellence as we’re known for.

We had 86% voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election. And the vast majority of folks, around 94%, voted through a drop box or mail. In the June primary, 99% voted through a drop box or mail. That means it’s working. We’re making it easier for people to vote, but that 14% who didn’t vote bothers me, it concerns me. And that 14% comes from some of the most vulnerable and poorest places in our city. So, the challenge remains and we’re going to do everything possible to continue to make that 14% disappear.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.