Colorado

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

Colorado: Election conspiracy groups target county clerks, seeking access to voting equipment | Saja Hindi/The 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 election officials continue to face threats as lawmakers pursue new protections | Scott Franz/KUNC

Election workers in Adams County are putting on bulletproof vests before they head to the office. More than 150 miles away in Salida, the clerks in the Chaffee County clerk and recorder’s office now talk to residents through bulletproof glass and walls. “It’s like it’s so beyond the pale, the craziness,” Chaffee County Clerk Lori Mitchell said last week after describing the range of threats and misinformation she and her staff are still facing following the 2020 election. “I think that’s why it’s hard to combat back because it’s like, ‘Oh my God, what the heck is going on?’” Mitchell said the threats against her office started on social media. They also targeted a worker at a ballot processing machine company that has been the focus of unfounded claims of fraud. “We did all the proper channels of reporting (the threats) to the sheriff and to the FBI and whatever we had to do,” she said. “But it still was very unnerving for me and my family.” Things got worse last summer. Mitchell was driving about a block away from her office in Salida, a small town on the banks of the Arkansas River surrounded by sprawling ranches and mountains. She said she noticed something alarming.

Full Article: Colorado election officials continue to face threats as lawmakers pursue new protections | KUNC

Colorado elections clerk is sued after passing on voting data | and Alexandra Ulmer/Reuters

A Colorado elections clerk was sued on Thursday after he copied data from voting machines with the help of two men with ties to groups supporting the false conspiracy theory that the 2020 election was stolen from former Republican President Donald Trump. Dallas Schroeder, who oversees elections in Elbert County, east of Denver, was sued by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold for making two copies of his county’s voting system hard drives and then handing the images to “unauthorized people”, according to the lawsuit. In the civil lawsuit, filed in Elbert County District Court, Griswold demands that Schroeder return the copies and hand over the device he used to make them. Schroeder did not immediately respond to a Reuters email for comment. Schroeder is the second Colorado elections clerk to come under scrutiny for allegedly breaching voting systems as part of an “election integrity” effort by Trump supporters who falsely claim the 2020 election was marred by fraud. Suspected breaches are under investigation in other states, including in Michigan, where authorities last week said an unnamed third party had been given unauthorized access to a county voting system. In August, the FBI opened an investigation into a suspected security breach of voting equipment in Mesa County in western Colorado. Griswold, a Democrat, has accused Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters of facilitating that breach.

Full Article: Colorado elections clerk is sued after passing on voting data | Reuters

Colorado: Douglas County clerk questioned by state about allegedly copying election equipment hard drives | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state Jena Griswold is requesting more information about a potential election security breach by Douglas County’s Republican clerk and recorder Merlin Klotz. This makes Klotz the third GOP election official in Colorado under investigation for their alleged handling of sensitive election technology. Griswold said her office became aware of a social media post from last October in which Klotz wrote, “we, as always, took a full image backup of our server before a trusted build was done this year.”  The trusted build is a regular process every county goes through after an election, in which the makers of its election equipment update the operating system. Douglas is one of two counties in the state whose equipment is supplied by a company called Clear Ballot. The rest of Colorado uses technology from Dominion Voting Systems, based in Denver. A false election conspiracy circulated by supporters of former president Trump claims that Dominion used their machines to subvert the 2020 election, and then hid the evidence during the routine software update. Klotz’s social media post did not suggest that he believes Clear Ballot was involved in election fraud but has concerns about Dominion’s trusted builds.

Full Article: Douglas County clerk questioned by state about allegedly copying election equipment hard drives | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado: A second county election official is accused of a security breach | Saja Hindi/Denver Post

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office is investigating a second county clerk over a possible elections security breach and has ordered Elbert County Clerk and Recorder Dallas Schroeder to turn over information related to allegations that he copied a voting system hard drive. The Democratic secretary of state ordered the Republican county clerk to appear at a deposition Feb. 7 to explain how the copy of the 2021 Dominion Voting Systems hard drive was made after Griswold’s office said Schroeder did not respond to an email request and an election order requiring the disclosure of information about the “potential security protocol breach.” She also asked that video surveillance of voting equipment be turned on and that no one access the voting equipment unaccompanied. “As Secretary of State, my top priority is to ensure that every eligible Coloradan – Republican, Democrat, and Independent, alike – has access to secure elections and I will always protect Colorado’s election infrastructure,” Griswold said in a statement. The secretary of state’s office said it doesn’t believe the “unauthorized imaging has created an imminent or direct security risk to Colorado’s elections” because of when it took place. This is not the first time the secretary of state’s office has launched an investigation over copies of election equipment hard drives. Last year, Griswold’s office sued Republican Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters over allegations of a security breach, resulting in a judge barring Peters from overseeing the 2021 election, and the secretary of state’s office is also trying to stop Peters from overseeing the 2022 election. Peters is still facing multiple lawsuits, ethics investigations and a grand jury investigation of a possible elections breach in her office. Schroeder is part of a lawsuit against Griswold’s office calling for an “independent forensic audit” of the 2020 election, a common refrain for those pushing baseless claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. As part of the filings, the secretary of state’s office said Schroeder signed an affidavit, dated Jan. 7, which states that he “made a forensic image of everything on the election server, and I saved the image to a secure external hard drive that is kept under lock and key in the Elbert County elections office” before the “trusted build” process took place. The “trusted build” is a routine update against vulnerabilities, according to the secretary of state’s office.

Full Article: A second county election official in Colorado is accused of a security breach

Colorado secretary of state files lawsuit to block Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from overseeing the 2022 election | Jesse Paul/Colorado Sun

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Tuesday filed a lawsuit seeking to block Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from having any oversight role in the 2022 election. The lawsuit comes after Peters, a Republican, refused last week to comply with a list of election security terms from Griswold, a Democrat, ahead of the November contest. The terms included that Peters be accompanied when near any of her county’s voting equipment and that she retract statements in which she “indicated a willingness to compromise Mesa County’s voting system equipment.” “Every eligible Coloradan – Republican, Democrat, and Independent alike – has the right to make their voice heard in safe and secure elections,” Griswold said in a written statement Tuesday. “As Clerk Peters is unwilling to commit to following election security protocols, I am taking action to ensure that Mesa County voters have the elections they deserve.”

Source: Jena Griswold sues to block Tina Peters from 2022 election oversight role

Colorado: Mesa County grand jury will investigate allegations of official misconduct, tampering with election equipment | Stephanie Butzer and Blair Miller/Denver Channel

A Mesa County grand jury will investigate the allegations of official misconduct and tampering with county election equipment amid an ongoing investigation into accusations that an elections clerk was involved in a security breach of the equipment in 2021. The 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office made the announcement early Thursday morning. The county made national headlines in 2021 after security information from the county’s voting machines was leaked to a right wing website. According to the investigation as of late December, investigators say Mesa’s Clerk and Recorder, Republican Tina Peters, let an unauthorized person access the voting machines. That person was also present for a secure software system update. In the announcement Thursday morning, Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the grand jury investigation will be “thorough and guided by the facts and the law.” Their statement did not name anybody in particular.

Full Article: Mesa County grand jury will investigate allegations of official misconduct, tampering with election equipment

Colorado: Mesa County drops lawsuit against Tina Peters over voting services contract | Sara Wilson/The Durango Herald

Mesa County will no longer pursue a lawsuit against Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters after she attested to county commissioner documents. The original lawsuit, filed on Dec. 21, alleged that Peters neglected her duty as clerk by failing to attest to legal action the county’s commissioners took to extend a contract with ​​Runbeck Election Services, as first reported by The Daily Sentinel. The company will print ballots and envelopes for the 2022 primary and general elections. Though Peters was stripped of her status to run elections in the county for the 2021 coordinated election, her duties as clerk still involve attesting to documents signed by the board. The deadline to attest to the voting services contract was Dec. 20, which Peters missed. That prompted the lawsuit. “Peters finally did attest to the Runbeck contract on Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2021, a week after all other documents were attested, one day after the given deadline and several hours after the county filed the lawsuit with the court,” Mesa County attorney Todd Starr wrote in a statement. It was necessary to expedite the contract with Runbeck because of a possible shortage of ballot envelopes and inserts next year, county officials said.

Full Article: Mesa County drops lawsuit against Tina Peters over voting services contract – The Durango Herald

Colorado Secretary of State asks judge to dismiss ‘baseless’ GOP election-denier lawsuit | Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit filed by six Republican elected officials seeking to launch a third-party “audit” of the 2020 election, part of a broader effort to spread baseless conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud and seize control of state elections. Griswold’s response, submitted on Monday, moves to dismiss all three claims for relief made by the lawsuit against her, which was filed last month by a group of GOP officials led by state Rep. Ron Hanks, a Penrose lawmaker and 2022 candidate for U.S. Senate. “My office is requesting the judge dismiss this baseless lawsuit,” Griswold said in a statement. “The plaintiffs’ allegations are patently false, and their legal justifications without merit. Nationwide, bad actors are abusing the judicial process to spread disinformation, undermine confidence in elections, and suppress the right to vote. It is extremely concerning to see elected officials here in Colorado spread conspiracy theories about the 2020 election.” Hanks’ lawsuit raises a series of objections to the secretary of state’s election procedures, including Griswold’s adoption of emergency rules prohibiting what she called “sham election audits” like the one that took place earlier this year in Arizona. That effort, conducted by Florida-based firm Cyber Ninjas at the request of GOP lawmakers, has been widely criticized as undermining confidence in the state’s election system while uncovering no credible evidence of fraud.

Full Article: Griswold asks judge to dismiss ‘baseless’ GOP election-denier lawsuit – Colorado Newsline

Colorado: Election denialism and far-right activism sit firmly within the GOP mainstream | Alex Burness/The Denver Post

Conservative activist Joe Oltmann of FEC United, a Colorado group with an active and armed citizen defense wing, called this week for his “traitor” political opponents to be hanged. “(T)wo inches off the ground, so they choke to death,” Oltmann said on his podcast, emphasizing to his co-host that he meant this literally. Those remarks have been met with silence from Republican leaders who say they’d rather not pay attention to that sort of rhetoric. They say it doesn’t represent the party and that voters in the state don’t want to discuss the sorts of extreme ideas Oltmann, a prominent voice in favor of the unproven claim that the 2020 election was rigged in Democrats’ favor, espouses on a regular basis. Average voters “actually are talking about education and crime and how expensive it is to live in Colorado,” state Republican Party chair Kristi Burton Brown told The Denver Post on Wednesday. As much as she and many other GOP leaders interviewed this month by The Post say they would like to distance themselves from FEC United, the ties between it and the conservative mainstream of Colorado are substantial. A lot of what Oltmann represents — chiefly election denial and the fervent belief that the country is besieged by treasonous Democrats and phony Republicans — is popular among the conservative base. And it figures to be a potentially major factor in 2022 elections here and around the country.

Full Article: Election denialism and far-right activism sit firmly within the Colorado GOP mainstream

Colorado’s top elections official seeks security protection | Associated Press

Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state is asking lawmakers for $200,000 annually for guards and other security-related measures after receiving escalating threats over her advocacy of elections security. Jena Griswold has consistently debunked claims, both locally and on national media, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. She’s also sued a Republican county clerk in western Colorado who is under federal investigation for allegedly breaching security protocols involving voting machines and has become a leading elections conspiracy figure popular with the right. With the online threats escalating, Griswold’s office is seeking $200,000 annually from the Legislature to “address election-related concerns” from the threats. The funds would pay for a vendor to track threats on social media and for guards for Griswold and some staff at public events, The Colorado Sun reported Wednesday. Griswold and local elections officials across the country have faced escalating harassment and threats in the aftermath of the 2020 election, which then-President Donald Trump and supporters contend was stolen by Democrat Joe Biden. No evidence of tampering has been found, and a flurry of lawsuits by Trump and his supporters challenging the result were tossed out of court.

Full Article: Colorado’s top elections official seeks security protection | AP News

Second Colorado county clerk joins Hanks lawsuit seeking 2020 election ‘audit’ | Colorado Newsline

A second Colorado county clerk signed on to a lawsuit filed by state Rep. Ron Hanks against Secretary of State Jena Griswold as part of an effort to conduct a third-party “audit” of the 2020 election in the state. Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder was added as a plaintiff in the lawsuit in an amended complaint entered a day after the initial complaint was filed in Denver District Court on Nov. 18. The lawsuit claims that election system software used in Colorado’s 64 counties in 2020 was improperly certified, that the secretary of state’s office illegally destroyed election records, and that Griswold exceeded her authority when in the summer she adopted emergency rules to prevent the kind of election audit then occurring in Arizona, which she deemed illegitimate. Also named as plaintiffs are Merlin Klotz, the Douglas County clerk and recorder; two of the three Rio Blanco County commissioners, Gary Moyer and Jeff Rector; and Park County Commissioner Amy Mitchell. Claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent or compromised have been debunked by experts, courts and election officials from both parties. When asked Monday about his motivation for joining the lawsuit, Schroeder said, “I’m not going to be speaking to the news media about that. We’ll have a website up shortly that will explain what’s going on.” Schroeder in August told Newsline that after the November 2020 election, he started fielding calls about election integrity from citizens, and to demonstrate that constituents could have confidence in the results his office conducted a hand recount of the vote in Elbert. The recount proved the results were correct.

Full Article: Second Colorado county clerk joins Hanks lawsuit seeking 2020 election ‘audit’ – Colorado Newsline

Colorado: FBI Raids Home of Election Official Accused of QAnon Leak | Tom Porter/Business Insider

The FBI on Tuesday raided the home of a Colorado elections official accused of leaking election machine data that later appeared on a site linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory movement. Federal, state, and local law enforcement officials were involved in searching the home of Tina Peters, the former Mesa County Clerk, as well as the homes of three of her associates, the Mesa County District Attorney’s office told local media. “We executed four federally court-authorized operations today to gather evidence in connection with the investigation into the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s Office,” District Attorney Dan Rubinstein told Colorado Politics. “We did so with assistance from the DA’s office from the 21st Judicial District, the Attorney General’s Office and the FBI.” When reached for comment, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Denver field office told Insider that its agents had conducted “authorized law enforcement actions’ on Tuesday in relation to an ongoing investigation. A judge last month banned Peters from overseeing elections in the state after Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, accused her in a lawsuit of involvement in leaking sensitive elections data, Colorado’s CPR News outlet reported. According to Griswold’s lawsuit, the data was taken when Peters invited an unauthorized person to attend a meeting between representatives from the election machine company and county election officials last year.

Full Article: FBI Raids Home of Colorado Election Official Accused of QAnon Leak

Colorado: Legal battle, ethics complaint against embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters persist | Saja Hindi/The Denver Post

The 2021 election in Mesa County, and subsequently the question of who would oversee it, may have ended, but the controversy surrounding Republican County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters has not. The case involving Peters’ counterclaims in response to Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s lawsuit is ongoing, with new filings due on Wednesday. The secretary of state’s lawsuit had resulted in a Mesa County District Court judge barring Peters and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley from administering the Nov. 2 election. A joint federal and state investigation into possible criminal charges against Peters over an alleged election equipment security breach is continuing, according to the district attorney’s office on Friday. A Mesa County activist’s complaint against Peters with the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission is pending. And the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is suing the clerk again, this time for alleged violations of campaign finance law. The saga with Peters, who was elected to her office in 2018, began when she allegedly allowed an unauthorized man access to a secure area in the county elections office in May — with the help of Knisley and one of the county’s election managers, Sandra Brown, according to the lawsuit — and passwords from the voting systems were posted online in August. Knisley was suspended in August for an unrelated workplace conduct investigation and later charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor cyber crime related to allegedly returning to the office, despite the suspension, and using county equipment.

Full Article: Legal battle, ethics complaint against embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters persist

Colorado: Mesa County fires employee tied to Tina Peters scandal | Marianne Goodland/Colorado Politics

Mesa County’s elections office has fired an employee allegedly involved in a security breach that later led to a court barring Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters and a deputy clerk from participating in the recently-concluded November elections. The county’s Election Director, Brandi Bantz, terminated Sandra Brown, a manager in the Elections Division. An email Tuesday from the Tina Peters Legal Defense Fund revealed Brown’s firing. The email also accused Secretary of State Jena Griswold of orchestrating Brown’s firing. Bantz confirmed to Colorado Politics that Brown was terminated. According to the Peters news release, Brown intends to sue for unidentified civil rights violations. While the Peters release didn’t identify a reason for Brown’s firing, a lawsuit filed Aug. 30 by Griswold claimed Brown and Peters “facilitated the improper presence of the individual identified as Gerald Wood at the May 25 trusted build.”

Full Article: Mesa County fires employee tied to Tina Peters scandal | News | coloradopolitics.com

Colorado: Mesa County needed to restore trust after an election system breach. Here comes Wayne Williams, in his boots. | Nancy Lofholm/The Colorado Sun

A kitschy red, white and blue wooden plaque reading “Of the people, By the people, For the people” hangs over a bank of Dominion Voting screens and scanners in a room tucked inside the warren of elections divisions offices at the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder’s building. Two cameras point at former Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams from corners of the room where he stands in his politically neutral red and blue plaid shirt and his size 15½ cowboy boots. He is taking in every detail of the ballot tabulating going on around him. And he is grinning. Sorting machines whir in the next room sending a stream of yellow ballot envelopes into slots. Election judges, in pairs of Republicans and Democrats, examine torn, stained, mismarked and unsigned ballots. Election workers wheel in locked black cases of ballots that other workers stack in bundles. Everything is operating as it should. This is turning out to be a normal election in abnormal circumstances that have placed Mesa County in a national spotlight at the vortex of election-fraud conspiracy theories. What went on in this room 4½ months ago brought Williams here. It also served as a wake-up call for what can happen when election integrity is compromised from the inside rather than by outside forces.

Full Article: How Mesa County sought to restore trust after its Tina Peters drama

Colorado: Amid a clerk controversy, Mesa County voters this election wondered: Should I even cast a ballot? | Stina Sieg/Colorado Public Radio

In addition to his choices for candidates and ballot measures, Melvin Brady was certain about two things in Mesa County’s election Tuesday: He was going to cast a ballot, and he was not going to use a Dominion voting machine to do it. “I would not trust them, you know, very much,” said the 71-year-old, as he walked out of Mesa County’s election office. Brady had filled out his ballot at home, then put it in a drop box, “whereas, I used the machine last time,” he said. The difference between this year and last, he explained, are allegations he’s heard about voter fraud linked to Dominion machines in the 2020 presidential election. Tuesday’s election in Mesa County was notable for a few reasons: The county was voting on funding a new high school — a measure that appears likely headed for victory — there raged a battle for the future of the school board, and the county’s clerk was barred from overseeing the election, partly due to her theories, and actions, around the Dominion voting machines. It is the latter controversy that has some voters in Mesa County questioning how — and even if — they should cast a ballot.

Full Article: Amid a clerk controversy, Mesa County voters this election wondered: Should I even cast a ballot? | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado officials counter false election claims | Charles Ashby/Grand Junction Sentinel

Full Article: Officials counter false election claims | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com

Colorado: Election misinformation reaches Arapahoe County clerk’s office | Ellis Arnold/Littleton Independent

Full Article: Election misinformation reaches Arapahoe County clerk’s office | Littletonindependent.net

Colorado: Election disinformation has clerks trying new tactics to assure voters | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

If you want to see the kind of disinformation clerks in Colorado are up against, it is on full display in the video Republican state lawmaker Ron Hanks made to announce his run for U.S. Senate. It opens with Hanks standing next to a truck bed that holds a rifle and a large printer bearing the label ‘Dominion Voting Machine.’ Most counties in Colorado use Dominion’s equipment and the Denver-based company is at the heart of false claims that it somehow rigged the 2020 election against Donald Trump. “As our next Senator, I’ll fight for our conservative values, and I’ll start by targeting our broken election system,” he tells viewers. Moments later he fires a shot that causes the machine to explode. While Colorado’s U.S. Senate election isn’t until 2022, Hanks recently asked his supporters to call his team if they find anything they believe is fraud during this year’s election. “There are multiple scenarios that could be revealed, and any evidence we gather will tighten the noose,” stated Hanks in the email. The whole thing has left Fremont County Clerk Justin Grantham frustrated. “I am his county clerk and recorder. And for him to spout out election fraud and not even come hear it from the trusted source,” said Grantham, a Republican.

Full Article: Election disinformation has Colorado clerks trying new tactics to assure voters | Colorado Public Radio

Colorado Supreme Court denies Peters appeal | Charles Ashby/Grand Junction Sentinel

Full Article: Colorado Supreme Court denies Peters appeal | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com

Colorado: Trumpist county clerk barred after leak of voting-system passwords to QAnon | Jon Brodkin/Ars Technica

A Colorado judge on Wednesday barred Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters from supervising elections due to the leak of voting-system BIOS passwords to QAnon conspiracy theorist Ron Watkins. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Mesa County registered elector Heidi Jeanne Hess had petitioned the court for a ruling that Peters and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley are unable to perform the functions of the Designated Election Official for the November 2021 election. The “court determines that the petitioners have met the burden of showing that Peters and Knisley have committed a breach and neglect of duty and other wrongful acts,” Mesa County District Court Judge Valerie Robison wrote in Wednesday’s ruling. “As such, Peters and Knisley are unable or unwilling to appropriately perform the duties of the Mesa County Designated Election Official. The court further determines substantial compliance with the provisions of the code require an injunction prohibiting Peters and Knisley from performing the duties of the Designated Election Official.” In August, Watkins released photos of information on Dominion’s Election Management Systems (EMS) voting machines, including an installation manual and “BIOS passwords for a small collection of computers, including EMS server and client systems,” as we reported at the time. While Watkins, a former 8chan administrator, was trying to prove that Dominion can remotely administer the machines, the documents actually showed “a generic set of server hardware, with explicit instructions to keep it off the Internet and lock down its remote management functions.” Peters, who promoted Trump’s conspiracy theory that voting machines were manipulated to help Joe Biden win the 2020 election, “‘holed up’ in a safe house provided by pillow salesman and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell” when the FBI began investigating her, according to an August 19 Vice News article. Her location was described as a “mystery” for a while, but she appeared at an event in Grand Junction, Colorado, last month.

Full Article: Trumpist county clerk barred after leak of voting-system passwords to QAnon | Ars Technica

Colorado: Hearing Set To Begin In Defamation Lawsuit Filed By Former Dominion Voting Employee Against Trump Campaign | Rick Sallinger/CBS Denver

With its U.S. base in Denver, Dominion Voting has been the target of claims that it was involved in election fraud, which it has denied and challenged in lawsuits. In particular, the vitriol has been directed at now-former Denver employee Eric Coomer quoted as saying, “Don’t worry Trump’s not going to win. I made f…ing sure about it.” That quote comes from Joe Oltmann of Parker who says he overheard it on a left-wing group’s call. He told CBS4’s Rick Sallinger, “I’m not afraid of this lawsuit. I never lied about anything. I lied about nothing.” The former president’s son, Eric Trump, republished the quote on social media. Other media picked it up including the Gateway Pundit represented in the suit by attorney Randy Corporan.

Full Article: Hearing Set To Begin In Defamation Lawsuit Filed By Former Dominion Voting Employee Against Trump Campaign – CBS Denver

Colorado: Mesa Clerk was given detailed instructions on how to back up election files | Charles Ashby/Grand Junction Sentinel

Full Article: Clerk was given detailed instructions on how to back up election files | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com

Colorado Judge to rule on Mesa County Clerk case next month | Charles Ashby/ Grand Junction Daily Sentinel

A planned hearing today to discuss any potential disagreements in the facts behind the case of whether Mesa County Court Tina Peters should be temporarily barred from conducting this fall’s election has been canceled. Instead, District Judge Valerie Robison will decide the case between Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Peters and her deputy, Belinda Knisley, solely on the legal briefs that have been filed to her court, and issue her ruling by Oct. 13, possibly before. That’s several days after the first day that county clerks can mail ballots to voters, which they can do on Oct. 8. Robison’s decision will be based on multiple briefs and exhibits filed by Peters’ attorney, former Secretary of State Scott Gessler, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Mesa County attorney Todd Starr over the past week. While Gessler argues that Peters was merely doing her job and should remain doing it, Weiser said Peters and Knisley committed extreme violations of election security protocols that make them both untrustworthy to conduct the upcoming election. Starr, meanwhile, simply argues that the county commissioners had little choice but to appoint former Secretary of State Wayne Williams to oversee the county’s elections when Griswold issued an order last month to appoint Mesa County Treasurer Sheila Reiner to head it. In those briefs, Gessler admits that Peters had allowed a non-county employee access to sensitive election equipment, saying she was within her rights to bring in a computer expert.

Full Article: Judge to rule on Peters case next month | Western Colorado | gjsentinel.com

Colorado elections supervisor embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat. | Emma Brown/The Washington Post

Full Article: Tina Peters embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat. – The Washington Post

Colorado: Mesa County Clerk Fights to Keep Her Job in New Court Filing | Bente Birkeland/Colorado Public Radio

Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, who is embroiled in an election security scandal, has denied wrongdoing and requested to remain in her role overseeing elections this fall. Her attorney said Peters was well within her legal right to share information about the county’s Dominion Voting Systems equipment with a non-employee during an annual system upgrade. Data from the machines were featured in screenshots shared by QAnon supporters and released by the right wing website Gateway Pundit, by those eager to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 presidential election. A court filing in response to an effort to remove Peters from overseeing elections in Mesa, said the leak of information was not Peters’ intent, but rather she was trying to preserve records and to better analyze how the state conducted system updates. “Unfortunately, there was an unauthorized release of information on one or more publicly available web sites,” said a filing in District Court in Mesa County from attorney Scott Gessler.  In the filing, Gessler, a Republican and former Colorado secretary of state, said the decision by current Secretary of State Jena Griswold to file a lawsuit to remove Peters from overseeing this fall’s election as a result was “wholly disproportionate” and violates Colorado law, “which vests local control over elections in a locally-elected official.”  Mesa county’s district attorney and the FBI are investigating allegations that Peters gave an unauthorized person access to the Dominion election management software and passwords, but no criminal charges have been filed against Peters or anyone else in the dispute.

Full Article: Mesa County Clerk Fights to Keep Her Job in New Court Filing | Colorado Public Radio