Colorado governor works to remedy leak of voting system passwords

Associated Press/Report for America

DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s Democrat governor said Thursday that he is providing state aircraft and vehicles to help with changing voting system passwords that were accidentally leaked on a state website.

The mistake comes amid skepticism of voting systems, even though U.S. election nationwide remain fair and reliable.

The passwords were left on a spreadsheet online for months, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced on Tuesday. Now, local, state and federal agencies are working together to change the passwords by Thursday evening, and analyze logs to ensure there hasn’t been any tampering.

The Colorado County Clerks Association said in a statement that because Colorado’s voting systems have layers of safeguards, and with the remediation plan already in motion, “county clerks can say with confidence that Colorado elections are secure.”

Former President Donald Trump’s campaign sent a letter to Griswold to express concern, which followed a similar letter from the chairman of the Colorado GOP. Griswold responded in a letter Thursday evening, saying that because of the many security levels, “no single error can compromise the integrity of the system,” and reiterated that the leak presents “no immediate threat.”

Griswold has called Colorado the gold standard for election security, though the leaked spreadsheet follows a hiccup in 2022.

Colorado’s other voting security measures include around-the-clock surveillance, badge-guarded access, and multiple passwords that must be used in-person and in secured areas — the access to which is tracked. Colorado voters fill out paper ballots, which are audited after the election.

The voting system was “built with many layers of security to protect against just this type of occurrence,” said Matt Crane, the association’s executive director and a former Republican county clerk. “Every clerk is taking this issue seriously and is staying laser-focused on delivering the safe and accurate elections that Coloradans have come to expect from us.”

Those tasked with changing the compromised passwords are working in pairs, under direct observation from local election officials, according to a statement from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office.

“We want to be able to provide assurances that all votes are counted fairly and accurately for this election and all elections,” Polis said.

“Colorado has countless layers of security to ensure voter’s voices are heard. I’m thankful to the governor for his support to quickly resolve this unfortunate mistake,” Griswold said.