Colorado

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

Spring snowflakes floated outside wall-to-wall windows framing Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s downtown Denver office as she reached for one of her two cell phones. She was looking for a video in which MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, the Donald Trump ally and conspiracy theorist, accused her of murder. “Jena Griswold is a criminal beyond all criminals,” said Lindell on his online show, the “Lindell Report,” which broadcasts on frankspeech.com, his face in one box on the screen adjacent to another with the face of his co-host Brannon Howse. “I got news for you, Jena, it’s too late, you already committed a murder and we caught you.” The statement caught the attention of Howse, who paused from moving things around his desk and asked: “A murder? A murder? A murder?” “It’s a para ... a ... a ... it’s an analogy,” Lindell responded. This, Griswold says, is a large part of what has made her job so difficult over the past two years. “It seems fantastic, the fact that [Lindell] called me a murderer,” said Griswold, 37, the first Democrat to win secretary of state in Colorado in more than 50 years. “Except it generates tons of death threats.”

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

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