A ballot drop box outside the Mesa County clerk’s office and recording office in Grand Junction, Colo., on August 26, 2021.
Hart Van Denburg / CPR News
hide captions
switch captions
Hart Van Denburg / CPR News
A ballot drop box outside the Mesa County clerk’s office and recording office in Grand Junction, Colo., on August 26, 2021.
Hart Van Denburg / CPR News
Eight months after a Colorado secretary allegedly hacked into her county’s voting machine while looking for evidence of fraud in the 2020 election, Democratic lawmakers in the state want the pollsters. the electorate does many of the things she’s accused of doing to be illegal.
A new Colorado bill would add training requirements for election workers and officials, and control counties to copy voting machine hard drives without state authorization, mandating Full-time video surveillance of the device and increased penalties for security breaches.
The law would also prohibit anyone who monitors elections knowingly or recklessly from making false statements about the process.
Efforts to prevent insider threats and misinformation that continue to erode public confidence in elections have led to concerns about possible First Amendment violations and some doubts about the motive behind the whole effort.
Democratic State Senate Chairman Steve Fenberg, main sponsor of bill.
While the measure has been in place for a while, it was officially put in place earlier this month, just two days after Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was fired. charged with a security breach her county’s voting device.
According to the grand jury indictment, Peters and her deputy Belinda Knisley allegedly “conceived and executed a fraudulent scheme” to give an unauthorized person access to the hard drive of their voting machine. county and software updates. Password snapshots and data copies were later leaked online by election conspiracy theorists.
Peters called the charges “politically motivated accusations” by Democrats.
Secretaries increase training, security requirements
The sweeping legislation would require counties to store all voting equipment in a secure area accessible only by keycard and subject to year-round continuous video surveillance. It would also prohibit anyone, even election office employees, from entering that area alone. Currently, cameras only have to be on for certain days around each election and only on certain election devices.
The proposal also aims to speed up the legal process when there is a possibility of a security breach. Tampering with voting equipment or releasing information like passwords would be a felony and would add whistleblower protections to employees who disclose misconduct.
“It’s important to the people of Colorado … that we’re not going to support these things,” said Matt Crane, head of the Colorado County Clerks Association and former Republican County secretary.
According to Crane, secretaries on both sides fully support the legislation. He noted that it would expand training and certification requirements for election officers, secretaries and certain employees in the secretary of state.
“I think what we saw in Mesa County was a poorly informed employee, which made her vulnerable to the bad guys and the bad guys,” Crane said. Peters had no election administration experience before being elected secretary in 2018.
But despite widespread support in constituency circles, it passed its first legislative hearing last week based on a partisan vote.
Republican Representative Matt Soper, who represents most districts in the House, said: “Seeing a bill like this go into action immediately, in response to what has happened in the County. Mesa, is worrisome. “Quite frankly [it] makes me angry because I don’t think we should write laws only for a certain already established segment of society, knowing that the existing laws on the books have been put into effect. “
Soper said he is open to voting on the bill, if it is amended to address some of his concerns. But he also noted that it is difficult for Republicans to accept a proposal when Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold is backing it.
“She made the office extremely partisan, and it didn’t have to be,” he said. “It makes the politics around this very difficult to vote on, even when reading through the bill, there’s a lot that Republicans and Democrats can agree on here.”
Griswold is running for office, and her fundraising emails often highlight her investigation into Peters, who is also new to the race. She has also developed a national profile as a critic of Republican-led voting policies.
Colorado GOP organized against the law. At the same time, party leaders asked Peters to suspend her campaign for secretary of state following criminal charges.
Misinformation ban raises constitutional concerns
What is shaping up to be the most controversial element of the bill is a section that prohibits election monitors from knowingly or recklessly disseminating misinformation or misinformation about the election.
Peters has long insisted she has the authority to investigate what she believes to be voter fraud in the 2020 election – suspicions she says begin with simply trying to answer questions that many of her constituencies have.
“They just kept bringing it to me and bringing it to me,” Peters told CPR last November. “I got emails and people wanted to see me. I tried to defend that we had, we had clean and fair elections.”
Peters says she can’t protect the system anymore. “I couldn’t see what I saw and it was disturbing for me.”
Peters has also participated in events and broadcasts hosted by people making false statements about the 2020 election, including Steve Bannon and Mike Lindell.
But for a prominent First Amendment lawyer, this aspect of the bill is problematic, regardless of the motives of its supporters.
Steve Zansberg heads the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition. He also provides legal representation to members of the Colorado Broadcasters Association, including the CPR. He said he wondered who would decide if a statement was intentionally or recklessly false.
“It raises serious constitutional questions because of the ambiguity about how it can be enforced,” says Zansberg. He added that the state’s ability to use what someone says as a condition and qualification to monitor elections is “deeply disconcerting”.
He said if lawmakers passed the provision, it would require a high standard of evidence and a clear process to determine whether someone has actually broken the law.
However, for supporters, the idea is just common sense. Senator Fenberg told a Senate committee he is fully aware that misinformation about voter fraud will continue to spread on social media, talk radios and other platforms.
He said his bill is not trying to cut down on that kind of speech.
“That’s why, in many ways, our democracy is great and disappointing and messy. But for those who run elections, there should be some basic standards,” he said. copy”.
As the effects of 2020 linger, Democrats move to pass new legislation
This measure is part of a package of voting measures Democrats introduced in this session that they consider necessary in response to baseless claims surrounding the 2020 election. includes a law prohibiting the public carrying of weapons within 100 feet of polling places and the bill would increase penalties for intimidation and harassment of election officials.
But Secretary Griswold said Colorado was the first state she knew of to propose this action against insider threats. She said she recently briefed other secretaries of state about the bill and hopes states across the country will follow Colorado’s lead.
“I believe we will see more insider attacks, as a way to destabilize the US election and push disinformation. So every state should be ready for the threat that is coming. this development,” she said.
County clerks say public scrutiny, and in some cases total distrust, has increased their workload and they feel urgent to ensure the public has a better understanding of how how elections work.
Fremont County Clerk Justin Grantham, a Republican, said combat misinformation in the conservative section of the state more important than ever right now.
“It’s like going to a trusted source, going and talking to someone who’s actually doing it, not someone who wants to do research on the internet,” says Grantham. “And if you’re not part of the process, you tend to not see the checks and balances you have on elections.”
