Colorado

Colorado Secretary of State appoints election supervisor in Elbert County, where Republican clerk copied voting machine hard drives | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold has appointed a supervisor to help oversee elections in Elbert County, the second such order she’s issued this week. On Monday, she appointed a supervisor in Pueblo County. In each case, Griswold cited mistakes made by the clerks. Both will still be involved with running the upcoming midterm elections in their respective counties but with additional oversight. Griswold said her decision to issue an order in Elbert County is due to the ongoing investigation into the actions taken by the Republican clerk Dallas Schroeder when he made copies of the county’s voting machine server. While it’s not illegal to capture an image of the hard drive, Schroeder told state investigators that he made copies with two county employees present and two outside people guiding them by phone, and then gave the duplicates to two attorneys. “The decision to appoint a Supervisor in Elbert County follows a 2021 election security protocol breach where Republican Clerk Dallas Schroeder violated Colorado Elections Rules by giving unauthorized individuals copies of images of the county’s voting system hard drives,” said a statement from Griswold’s office.

Full Article: Secretary of State appoints election supervisor in Elbert County, where Republican clerk copied voting machine hard drives | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado clerks warn that election deniers infiltrate ranks of poll watchers and election judges ahead of November midterms | Conrad Swanson/The Denver Post

County clerks across Colorado say they’re bracing for a surge of highly motivated election deniers working as poll watchers or election judges in the November midterms — part of a nationwide attempt to manufacture evidence of election fraud. Local, state and federal officials, alongside political experts, have repeatedly debunked claims of election fraud but clerks in Chaffee, Eagle, El Paso, Fremont, Garfield, Summit and Weld counties told the Denver Post they’re still seeing an increasing number of bad-faith poll watchers and election judges around the state. Encouraged, even recommended, by party officials or far-right voices with national reach, the clerks say those watchers and judges have antagonized or threatened election workers, wrongly rejected hundreds of ballots and one man in Chaffee County even tried to steal a password to the election system last year. The irony sits in the notion that these far-right election judges and poll watchers are damaging the country’s foundation of fair and free elections, all under the guise of fighting for election security, Larry Jacobs, a professor of political history, elections and voting behavior at the University of Minnesota, said. Their goals appear to be to sow doubt and prop up losing candidates. The effort continues former President Donald Trump’s work to overturn the 2020 election except it’s now more sophisticated. “It’s moved from spur of the moment, ad hoc, to an organized, well-funded, premeditated effort to make charges of election fraud,” Jacobs said.

Full Article: Election deniers infiltrate ranks of poll watchers and election judges ahead of November midterms, Colorado clerks warn

Colorado: Man gets prison for threatening election official | Margery A. Beck/Associated Press

A Nebraska man was sentenced Thursday to 18 months in prison for making online threats against Colorado’s top elections official, one of the first cases brought by a federal task force devoted to protecting elections workers nationwide from rising threats. The sentence came the same day an Iowa man was arrested for allegedly leaving voicemail threats for an Arizona official and the Arizona’s Attorney General’s Office. In Nebraska, Travis Ford was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Lincoln, where he lives. He pleaded guilty earlier this year to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. It was the first guilty plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, launched last year after the 2020 presidential contest amid concerns about the potential effect on democracy of threats against election officials and workers. A national advocate for elections security, Griswold has received thousands of threats over her insistence the 2020 election was secure despite false claims by former President Donald Trump it was stolen. Ford must report to a federal prison Jan. 11 and later complete a year of post-prison supervision.

Full Article: Man gets prison for threatening Colorado election official | AP News

Colorado: Election deniers inundate Jefferson County clerks with unprecedented number of information requests; One clerk calls it ‘morale killer’ | Brian Maass/CBS

As Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder George Stern’s staff is gearing up for the Nov. 8 midterm election, he says his office is being hamstrung by dozens of new open records act requests seeking detailed information about the 2020 election, nearly two years ago. “It’s a huge distraction and morale killer eight weeks before a very important election,” Stern said. “He says he is obligated to respond and fulfill the Colorado Open Records Act requests but calls it frustrating that some are consuming valuable staff time, trying to litigate the 2020 election, which he says was free and fair. Of 380,000 votes cast in El Paso County in the 2020 election, Stern says he is aware of one potential case of attempted fraud. “We’ve received CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) requests — about 15 — in a matter of a few days, all copy and pasted. This is a coordinated effort by somebody,” Stern said. The requests typically ask for a dozen or more obscure pieces of 2020 election, information such as undervotes, overvotes, mark density and cast vote records. Some of the requests demand Stern’s office preserve 2020 election records as the requestor indicates they may sue his office over unspecified 2020 election fraud. “Staff members are exhausted from all this,” Stern explained. “It’s a drain.” Stern, a Democrat, continued, saying, ” We’re seeing this all over the state in big counties, small counties, counties that are left and counties that are right. All clerks are facing it.”

Full Article: Election deniers inundate Colorado county clerks with unprecedented number of information requests; One clerk calls it ‘morale killer’ – CBS Colorado

Colorado: Tina Peters’ deputy clerk pleads guilty, will cooperate with investigation into her boss | Bente Birkeland and Megan Verlee/Colorado Public Radio

Prosecutors looking to build their case against Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters have gained a potentially important asset in their investigation — the cooperation of Peters’ deputy clerk Belinda Knisley. On Thursday Knisley pled guilty to three misdemeanor charges relating to her role in the breach of Mesa County’s election machines last year. In return for dropping more significant charges against her, Knisley has agreed to assist prosecutors. “There was some specific information she provided to us that was very valuable,” said Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein as part of his reasoning for the court to accept the plea deal. The judge granted prosecutors’ request to sentence Knisley to two years of unsupervised probation, as long as she continues to cooperate with the investigators building a case against Peters and former Mesa County Elections Manager Sandra Brown. He also ordered her to perform 150 hours of community service. Her conviction will prevent her ever working or volunteering in elections administration again. “This has been a very tumultuous time in her life,” Knisley’s lawyer said during the hearing, noting that she’s had a heart attack since the investigation began and that “she would like to get this matter behind her, do what she needs to do.”

Full Article: Tina Peters’ deputy clerk pleads guilty, will cooperate with investigation into her boss | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado: Fact Checking Claims About Dominion Voting Systems and the Recount | Khaya Himmelman/The Dispatch

A recent article from The Gateway Pundit, which has a history of promoting false voter conspiracy theories, claims that Dominion Voting System machines failed a logic and accuracy test in El Paso County, Colorado, “for the upcoming hand recount of the 2022 Primary election.” In Colorado’s March primary, Mesa County clerk Tina Peters lost her primary bid for the secretary of state nomination by 88,224 votes and state Senate candidate Lynda Zamora Wilson lost her race by 8,710 votes. According to the article, “The recount was ordered (and paid for) by some of the candidates, including Mesa Clerk Tina Peters and El Paso senate candidate Linda [sic] Zamora Wilson, who had her election inexplicably overturned AFTER it had been called by local news without any explanation.” The article also references a viral tweet, which similarly claims that “Dominion voting machines fail logic & accuracy test in El Paso County, CO recount. Almost 60% of test ballots sent to adjudication.”

Source: Fact Checking Claims About Dominion Voting Systems and the Colorado Recount

Colorado: Tina Peters’ quarter-million-dollar recount gains her 13 votes | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Colorado has wrapped up a statewide recount of the GOP primary race for secretary of state which left the result unchanged. Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters requested the recount and accused the election of being rigged after results showed her losing by a wide margin to former Jefferson County Clerk Pamela Anderson. Peters gained 13 votes in the recount, as did Anderson. Mike O’Donnell, who narrowly got third in the race, gained 11 votes. “The recounts are complete and confirm once again that Colorado elections are safe and secure,” said Secretary of State Jena Griswold. Peters lost the June Republican primary for secretary of state by 88,579 votes, or around 14 points. Candidates can request a discretionary recount but have to foot the bill for it; state rules say candidates must pay for any recount when the margin is more than 0.5 percent.

Full Article: Tina Peters’ quarter-million-dollar recount gains her 13 votes | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado: Group of Republican primary losers solicits funds to demand a recount | Zoe Schacht/Colorado Newsline

With time running out to request a recount of the Colorado primary election, Republican candidates who lost held a fundraising event in Colorado Springs Sunday evening. The event, “Colorado Recount Fundraiser,” included multiple losing candidates. During the event, speakers directed attendees and livestream viewers to visit the website of the Colorado Recount Coalition to donate to candidates. The website lists nine candidates, including Tina Peters and Ron Hanks, election conspiracy theorists who deny the results of the 2020 presidential election. Peters, the Mesa County clerk, was a candidate for secretary of state, and Hanks was a candidate for U.S. Senate. They previously submitted a request for a recount to the secretary of state’s office but failed to provide funds for the effort in time. “We know they cheated,” Peters said during the event. Claims that results of the primary election were compromised have not been substantiated. The Colorado Recount Coalition website says that candidates will be “demanding” a hand recount of the June 28 primary. But a hand recount is not possible, according to Annie Orloff, spokesperson for Secretary of State Jena Griswold. A recount can still be requested through Tuesday, but it must be conducted in the same manner as the original election, which was tallied through tabulation machines, Orloff said.

Full Article: Group of Colorado Republican primary losers solicits funds to demand a recount – Colorado Newsline

Colorado: Two GOP primary losers fail to pay for recounts | Nicholas Riccardi and Colleen Slevin/Associated Press

Colorado’s secretary of state’s office on Wednesday said it has told two candidates who lost their Republican primary races last month that it will not conduct a recount of those races because they failed to pay the required amount by the deadline. The office informed Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who lost her race for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, and state Rep. Ron Hanks, who fell short in his bid for the party’s U.S. Senate nomination, that it was moving forward finalizing the results of the primary. Neither candidate paid the $236,000 that was due by July 15 for the recount. In letters sent to the office on Tuesday, both said they wanted a hand recount rather than one done by machine. A centerpiece of their election conspiracy theory has been mistrust of voting machines. Peters and Hanks have promoted the false claim that President Joe Biden did not actually win his election against former President Donald Trump in 2020 and also claimed widespread fraud led to their losses in the state’s June 28 GOP primary. They are part of a growing number of deniers of the outcome of the 2020 election also questioning their own primary losses. The secretary of state’s letters said a hand recount is not allowed under the office’s regulations and dismissed the candidates’ concerns about possible fraud. It said they have one last window to pay for a recount — until July 26.

Full Article: Two GOP primary losers in Colorado fail to pay for recounts | AP News

Colorado judge revokes Tina Peters’ bond after travel to Las Vegas for a conference | Amanda Pampuro/Courthouse News Service

A Colorado judge issued a bondless warrant for embattled Mesa County Clerk-Recorder Tina Peters on Thursday after she violated the terms of her release by traveling to Las Vegas for a conference. Peters first came under scrutiny in 2021 after a security breach in her office led to the exposure of sensitive passwords and election processes. She is accused of allowing an unauthorized person to participate in what should have been a secure process for installing an update to the electronic voting system. Court documents indicate Peters took videos and photos, which included passwords and were leaked online. While under investigation by both the state and the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office, Peters told supporters she is standing up for what she believes in while citing baseless election fraud conspiracies spread after Biden won the presidency in 2020. This past January, Democratic Secretary of State Griswold successfully sued to block Peters from participating in Mesa County’s elections for the second year in a row. Both the Mesa County Board of County Commissioners and the district attorney’s office investigated Peters’ claims of irregularities in the 2020 vote count, but did not find evidence of a single fraudulent vote. Presented with Peters’ report of fraud, District Attorney Daniel Rubinstein found only human error.

Full Article: Colorado judge revokes Tina Peters’ bond after travel to Las Vegas for a conference | Courthouse News Service

Why Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state won’t stop warning about ‘insider threats’ | Adam Edelman/NBC

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold was in a constant state of motion Tuesday night as she awaited the primary election results that would determine her opponent in her re-election contest this fall. Moving through her downtown office building, Griswold, who ran unopposed for the Democratic Party’s renomination, checked in with her Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit, the group she created in 2020 to help fight election misinformation. She chatted up her cybersecurity squad, composed of members of her information technology team and computer scientists temporarily deployed by the Army and Air National Guards. And she watched the results from the Republican secretary of state primary come in fast — a benefit of the state’s vote-by-mail system in which previously processed votes are tabulated immediately after polls in the state close. Would her November opponent be Tina Peters, a local election official indicted on charges that she directed a breach of voting machines — exactly the type of “insider threat” to election security Griswold has spent the last several years warning about and trying to guard against? bWithin an hour of polls closing, former Jefferson County clerk Pam Anderson had been projected the winner, instead. Peters, almost immediately and without evidence, claimed fraud was responsible for her third-place finish. Griswold later told NBC News, following Peters’ claims, that the state’s elections are “safe and secure and have bipartisan oversight throughout” the process.

Full Article: Why Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state won’t stop warning about ‘insider threats’

Colorado: Pueblo County voting machine allegedly tampered with, election officials say | Anna Lynn Winfrey/Pueblo Chieftain

A Pueblo voter is accused of tampering with an in-person ballot machine during the Pueblo County primary election Tuesday, according to a spokesperson with the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office. The incident did not affect any votes cast in the election, the spokesperson said. It took place at the Pueblo County Elections Department on 720 N. Main St., and the Secretary of State was alerted Tuesday evening. Signs of tampering were discovered when one of the department’s election judges — who are tasked with cleaning voting machines between each use — went to clean the machine and saw an error message, the spokesperson said. Election workers removed the machine from use. The voting machines are not connected to each other. … Voting on ballot machines is rare in Colorado because ballots are mailed to all eligible voters. In this year’s primary election, approximately 1.3% of Colorado voters cast their ballots in-person.

Full Article: Pueblo voting machine allegedly tampered with, election officials say

Colorado guilty plea a first for US election task force | Associated Press

A Nebraska man has pleaded guilty to making death threats against Colorado’s top elections official in a what officials say is the first such plea obtained by a federal task force devoted to protecting elections workers across the U.S. who have been subject to increasing threats since the 2020 presidential election. Travis Ford, 42, pleaded guilty in Denver federal court to sending threats to Secretary of State Jena Griswold on social media. Griswold is a national advocate for elections security who has received thousands of threats over her insistence that the 2020 election was secure and that former President Donald Trump’s claims that it was stolen from him are false. Thursday’s plea was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Colorado and was first reported by The Denver Gazette. Ford, a resident of Lincoln, Nebraska, faces up to two years in prison when he is sentenced Oct. 6. It’s the first guilty plea obtained by the U.S. Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force, which was launched last year to investigate threats of violence against elections workers, the office said. FBI agents in Colorado and Nebraska investigated the case.

Full Article: Colorado guilty plea a first for US election task force | AP News

Colorado election law updates follow threats against election workers, allegations against Tina Peters | Nick Coltrain/The Denver Post

Colorado law now includes new provisions aimed to protect the state’s elections and its election workers. Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday signed into law SB22-153, which requires new security measures for election systems, and HB22-1273, which makes it a crime to threaten election officials or publish their personal information online to harass them. “We want to make sure that every vote is accurately counted,” Polis said at the signing ceremony. “And we also want to make sure that those that oversee elections themselves don’t have to worry about their about their physical safety.” The election security law is specifically aimed at “insider threats,” such as election workers “embracing conspiracies,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said. It includes making it a felony to tamper with voting equipment or knowingly publish confidential information about the system. It also requires key card access and video surveillance for voting systems. “We are not immune to the attacks on democracy that we have seen across the nation,” Griswold said, while hailing the state’s election security and ballot access. Griswold didn’t name Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, but Peters’ alleged actions spurred the legislation. Peters is under indictment for alleged breaches to her county’s election system. Peters is seeking the Republican nomination for secretary of state, and was the top vote getter at the state GOP assembly this spring. She was recently barred from overseeing the June primary election and November general election after being sued by Griswold.

Full Article: Colorado election law updates follow threats against election workers, allegations against Tina Peters

Colorado’s June 28 primary will test just how much Republicans embrace 2020 election conspiracies | Jesse Paul/The Colorado Sun

Eli Bremer thinks that his refusal to embrace unfounded claims that former President Donald Trump really won the 2020 election cost him a spot on the Republican U.S. Senate primary ballot this year. “Absolutely,” said Bremer, a former Olympic athlete who in April fell well short of the support he needed from Colorado GOP state assembly delegates to advance to the June 28 contest. But he doesn’t think the assembly electorate, made up of about 3,500 party insiders, is reflective of the broader Republican primary electorate. “I think that the election-was-stolen group is a very small, but very agitated group right now,” he said. “I don’t see a broad movement.” In a month we’ll find out whether he is right. In virtually every major Republican primary race in Colorado this year, from the U.S. Senate contest to the battle over who will be the GOP nominee in the highly competitive new 8th Congressional District, voters will have a choice between a candidate or candidates who baselessly believe the outcome of the last presidential election was fraudulent and those who don’t.

Full Article: How much do Colorado Republicans embrace election conspiracies?

One Colorado Race Will Be About Voters’ Faith in Elections. It’s Not Looking Good. | Jennifer Oldham/Politico

Full Article: One Colorado Race Will Be About Voters’ Faith in Elections. It’s Not Looking Good. – POLITICO

Colorado: Mesa County District Attorney finds human error behind election audit used to prop up fraud claims | Amanda Pampuro/Courthouse News Service

Following a criminal investigation, the Mesa County, Colorado, District Attorney’s Office concluded human error, not criminal fraud, caused anomalies identified in an election audit used to prop up county elections chief Tina Peters’ claims of voter fraud. The audit, compiled at Peters’ request, found three suspicious events occurred in October during the 2020 election and in March 2021 during the Grand Junction municipal election. After ruling out county elections staff, the report suggested these events were triggered by either Dominion Voting Systems staff or an unknown remote party via the internet. Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein disagreed with the audit’s conclusion during a presentation to the Board of County Commissioners on Thursday. “We can prove what actually happened, and that was human error,” Rubinstein said. “We have evidence that [elections manager] Sandra Brown did both. We have no evidence that what Sandra Brown did was in ill intent or a criminal offense. We find no evidence that it affected the election at all.” Brown was fired from her position this past November. Rubenstein said neither Brown nor the audit report’s authors, Walter Daugherity and Jeffrey O’Donnell, agreed to speak with investigators. In a statement provided to Rubenstein, O’Donnell said he declined to cooperate because “the report clearly states that it was written in defense of Tina Peters and others’ legal cases.”

Full Article: Mesa County DA finds human error behind election audit used to prop up fraud claims | Courthouse News Service

Colorado judge bars indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from overseeing 2022 elections | Timothy Bella and Emma Brown/The Washington Post

Full Article: Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, indicted Colorado GOP official, barred from overseeing 2022 elections – The Washington Post

Colorado passes election security bill inspired by clerk accused of tampering | Benjamin Freed/StateScoop

Legislators in Colorado on Tuesday passed a bill aimed at stopping insider threats against election administration, particularly the technology used to process and certify ballots. The bill, which passed with bipartisan support, makes several changes to how county election offices safeguard and provide access to their systems, including requiring continuous video surveillance of all voting systems components, and installing key-card access to rooms where equipment is kept. It also prohibits the unauthorized copying of ballot-machine hard drives, and makes it a felony to tamper with voting systems, publish devices’ passwords online or give unauthorized individuals access to any election equipment. The legislation, which now goes to Gov. Jared Polis’ desk, was inspired directly by the case of Tina Peters, the clerk and recorder of votes in Mesa County who is currently under indictment for several of those exact offenses. Peters, who has openly embraced lies promoted by former President Donald Trump and others about the 2020 election, was accused last year of allowing an unauthorized individual to observe a secure software update on her county’s ballot-processing machines, and letting that person make copies of hard drives and passwords, images of which were displayed a few months later at a conspiracy-theorist conference hosted by pillow manufacturer Mike Lindell.

Full Article: Colorado passes election security bill inspired by clerk accused of tampering

Colorado: Adams County clerk wears bulletproof vest due to increase in threats | Pattrik Perez/The Denver Channel

Following the 2020 presidential election, Adams County’s top elections official says he’s had to adopt additional security measures because of threats from conspiracy theorists. “When I left the Marine Corps, I thought that was the last time that I was going to be wearing body armor,” said Adams County Clerk and Recorder Josh Zygielbaum. “And here I am again, almost 15 years later and not as nearly as good a shape as I was then, but, you know, still wearing body armor.” As first reported by ABC News, Zygielbaum says the decision to wear a bulletproof vest was made because of increasing threats, both direct and indirect, from election deniers, which concerns him and his staff. “I think the worst one that we’ve received was somebody telling us that they would see us on a battlefield and they would walk away from it,” Zygielbaum said. Some of the security improvements he’s implementing include a remodel to his elections office, which will better protect his employees from the public once complete.

Full Article: Adams County clerk wears bulletproof vest due to increase in threats

Colorado judge orders Elbert County Clerk to turn over copies of voting hard drives | Coleen Sleven/Associated Press

A judge has ordered a county clerk who copied his voting system’s hard drives to turn over his copies to Colorado’s secretary of state by the end of the day Wednesday. Secretary of State Jena Griswold sued to force Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder to turn over the external hard drives containing the copies and Judge Gary M. Kramer ruled late Friday that Schroeder must follow her lawful orders. Kramer also ordered Schroeder to answer Griswold’s questions about who has had access to the copies in filings. It’s one of a handful of cases across the United States in which authorities are investigating whether local officials directed or aided in suspected security breaches at their own election offices. Some of them have expressed doubt about the results of the 2020 presidential election. Schroeder’s lawyer, John Case, declined to comment on the order Monday. Schroeder has said he copied the hard drives because he wanted to preserve the results of the 2020 election. He first made a copy of the hard drives of the election server, the image cast central computers and the adjudication computer before the state updated voting software. He then made a copy of that set of copies.

Full Article: Judge orders clerk to turn over copies of voting hard drives | AP News

Colorado county clerks reassure voters while watching for cyberattacks | Jessica Gibbs/Centennial Citizen

While local counties’ clerks and recorders say they are still taking steps to unravel false claims of widespread election fraud two years after the 2020 presidential election and ahead of the June primaries, they are also on the lookout for potential cyberattacks after warnings from President Joe Biden that such attacks are increasingly likely. “It’s definitely nerve-wracking, but something that we are starting to get used to,” Adams County Clerk and Recorder Josh Zygielbaum said. “It’s the world we live in now, and we do everything we can to protect the system and to protect ourselves and our workers and our voters.” The cybersecurity threat level is similar to past elections, or the worst-case scenarios election offices have prepared for, metro area clerks said. “There is no question right now, every agency is indicating that the risk of Russian initiated cyber security threats has increased,” Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder George Stern said. But Stern said “long before we had internal threats to our elections,” cybersecurity and the security of election from foreign interference “has been top of mind,” Stern said. Regular probes from countries including Russia, Iran, North Korea and others are directed toward state and local election offices, looking for vulnerability in the system. Clerks said their offices partner with homeland security, the FBI, and state and local departments to monitor cyberthreats.

Full Article: County clerks reassure voters while watching for cyberattacks | Centennialcitizen.net

Colorado: New election tool provides transparency to voting ballots | Angeline McCall/9news

Full Article: Public can look at election ballots with new online tool | 9news.com

Colorado lawmakers advance bill to protect elections workers | James Anderson/Associated Press

A Colorado legislative panel advanced a bill Thursday to add protections for elections workers after hearing disturbing testimony about escalating threats that have prompted many to quit or take security training so they feel safe in their public-service work. State and local elections officials told the House State, Civic, Military, & Veterans Affairs Committee that their workers, from municipal front-office staff to county clerks to the state’s highest-ranking elections officials, have experienced an escalation of threats since the 2020 presidential election. The threats — delivered by email, phone, or by the posting on social media of home addresses of workers and their family members — have left some local authorities confronting staff shortages ahead of Colorado’s June primaries and the November midterms. The threats have also prompted some workers to wear bulletproof vests to and from work around elections time and add active-shooter training to routine elections training in several counties, said the bill’s sponsors and several county clerks. Colorado’s elections workers “have truly faced unprecedented threats, especially over the past two years, simply for doing their jobs,” said Democratic Rep. Emily Sirota, a bill sponsor.

Full Article: Colorado lawmakers advance bill to protect elections workers | AP News

Colorado County Clerks Association vow to defend democracy against election deniers | Ella Cobb/Daily Camera

Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick wants Colorado voters to know that thousands of dead people did not vote in the 2020 election. This rumor was one of several that Fitzpatrick and other Colorado county clerks refuted during a news conference hosted by the Colorado County Clerks association on Sunday outside the Denver Elections Division in Denver, where Republican, Democratic and unaffiliated clerks gathered to address allegations of election fraud put forth by election deniers and conspiracy theorists. In the past two years, election conspiracists have targeted Colorado clerks, citing fraud and security issues within Colorado’s election systems. Some of these false claims have ranged from accusations that China hacked Colorado’s voter registration database to reports claiming that Colorado’s voting systems are not properly certified. Fitzpatrick sought to set the record straight. “Unfortunately, over the last several months, there have been claims from election deniers that purport to prove fraudulent elections in Colorado,” Fitzpatrick said. “These claims are often lengthy, and they’re often full of jargon, and they do not provide proof or data. They consistently demonstrate a lack of understanding of our process.

Full Article: Colorado County Clerks Association vow to defend democracy against election deniers

Colorado lawmakers advance bill to protect elections workers | James Anderson/Associated Press

A Colorado legislative panel advanced a bill Thursday to add protections for elections workers after hearing disturbing testimony about escalating threats that have prompted many to quit or take security training so they feel safe in their public-service work. State and local elections officials told the House State, Civic, Military, & Veterans Affairs Committee that their workers, from municipal front-office staff to county clerks to the state’s highest-ranking elections officials, have experienced an escalation of threats since the 2020 presidential election. The threats — delivered by email, phone, or by the posting on social media of home addresses of workers and their family members — have left some local authorities confronting staff shortages ahead of Colorado’s June primaries and the November midterms. The threats have also prompted some workers to wear bulletproof vests to and from work around elections time and add active-shooter training to routine elections training in several counties, said the bill’s sponsors and several county clerks. Colorado’s elections workers “have truly faced unprecedented threats, especially over the past two years, simply for doing their jobs,” said Democratic Rep. Emily Sirota, a bill sponsor.

Full Article: Colorado lawmakers advance bill to protect elections workers | AP News

Colorado; Supporters of Tina Peters are going after other Colorado clerks. Here’s what they want. | Saja Hindi/Denver Post

For an hour and a half, El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman met with a small group of people that showed up at his office to talk about what they insisted were deep-rooted security and fraud problems within Colorado’s election systems. Problems that Broerman, a Republican, and other election officials have repeatedly said don’t exist. Among the visitors was 2020 election denier Shawn Smith of an effort called the U.S. Election Integrity Plan — a group that claims election irregularities and fraud in the 2020 elections in Colorado. One of their requests to Broerman during the meeting in May: give access to the county voting equipment and allow a third party to conduct “a forensic audit.” Broerman declined, but he described to them in detail the redundant systems of election security measures to show why elections in his county are secure and reliable. The clerk said Smith, of Colorado Springs, then responded, “Clerk Broerman, we will either do this with you or through you.” “I took that as a threat that if I didn’t do that, that there would be repercussions for not doing what they wanted me to do,” he said. That wasn’t the last Broerman heard from this group or others. He, like other local elections officials across the country, have been facing increased pressure from people trying to cast doubt on the integrity of U.S. elections using unfounded claims of election fraud, spreading the lie that former President Donald Trump won the 2020 election.

Full Article: Colorado county clerks defend against voter fraud claims

Colorado: Rio Blanco County Commissioners vote 2-1 to defund election equipment | Lucas Turner/Rio Blanco Herald Times

Rio Blanco County Commissioners voted 2-1 this week in favor of defunding Dominion-based vote tabulation machines in the Clerk and Recorder’s office. If implemented, the move would require election officials to hand-count all votes in future elections. The decision came following back-and-forth comments by current/former election officials (who spoke against the measure) and RBC residents who questioned the security of dominion machines (who spoke in favor). “Adoption of this measure will cause chaos in the clerk and recorder’s office during the 2022 election cycle, and will expose RBC to serious liability and litigation,” said County Clerk Boots Campbell Tuesday. She voiced strong opposition to the measure, and pushed back on claims of fraud, miscounts and other alleged discrepancies in the county’s election verification process. She emphasized the matter would wind up before the Deputy Secretary of State, and noted that even if it goes through (following a required public hearing) it will not impact tabulation systems of this year’s elections.

Full Article: Commissioners vote 2-1 to defund election equipment | Rio Blanco Herald Times | Serving Meeker, Rangely, Dinosaur & Northwest Colorado

Colorado: Democratic bill targets ‘insider’ threats to state’s election system | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Eight months after Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters allegedly compromised her county’s election machines while searching for proof of fraud in the 2020 election, Colorado’s Democratic lawmakers want to make it illegal for those who run elections to do much of what she’s accused of. A new bill would ban anyone overseeing elections from knowingly or recklessly making false statements about the process. It also adds more training requirements for election staff and officials, bars counties from copying voting machine hard drives without state permission, mandates full-time video monitoring of equipment and increases penalties for security breaches. Supporters believe Colorado is the first state to try this approach to prevent insider threats and disinformation from further eroding public trust in elections, even as others raise concerns about potential First Amendment violations and question the motives behind the entire effort. “I don’t think it’s too much to ask to say, ‘if you’re running our elections you can’t lie about our elections’,” said Democratic Senate President Steve Fenberg who is the main sponsor of SB22-153.  While the measure had been in the works for a while, it was officially introduced just two days after Peters was charged with breaching the security of her county’s voting equipment. In the words of the grand jury’s indictment, Peters and her deputy Belinda Knisley allegedly “devised and executed a deceptive scheme”  to give an unauthorized person access to the county’s voting machine hard drives and to sit in on a software update. Photos of passwords and copies of data were later leaked online by election conspiracy theorists.

Full Article: Democratic bill targets ‘insider’ threats to Colorado’s election system | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado clerk is indicted for election tampering and misconduct | Bente Birkeland/NPR

A grand jury has indicted a Colorado county clerk, Tina Peters, and her deputy on a laundry list of charges related to an election security breach in her office last summer that was influenced by former President Donald Trump’s false claims that he won the 2020 election. The charges against Peters come as election workers around the U.S. face death threats amid a national disinformation campaign that has falsely alleged wide-scale election tampering in 2020. Peters’ case is particularly worrisome to many who run elections as a sign that insiders might act upon those conspiracy theories, further undermining confidence in the voting process. Peters, who’s the county clerk and recorder in Mesa County, in western Colorado, faces 10 counts, including seven felony charges and three misdemeanors. The felony charges include attempting to influence a public servant, identity theft, criminal impersonation and conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation. The misdemeanors include first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state. Her deputy, Belinda Knisley, has been indicted on six counts, including attempt to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty and failure to comply with the requirements of the secretary of state.

Full Article: Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters indicted for election tampering : NPR