Griswold rallies Indivisible activists with anti-Trump speech while overseeing Colorado elections

By Jen Schumann and Shaina Cole | Rocky Mountain Voice

When Larimer County resident Phoebe McWilliams tuned into an Indivisible Colorado Zoom call on August 6, she expected to hear an update on election policy. Instead, she heard Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold accuse President Donald Trump of “abusing our legal system and undermining the Constitution almost every single day” and rally activists to “stop Trump in the courts, mobilize and beat MAGA.”

“She should be neutral,” McWilliams said after listening to the call. “Because all people hear is her so-called professional opinion. She’s not neutral, and that should be a neutral position.”

Griswold’s partisan rally cry

Speaking to more than 400 attendees, Griswold accused Trump of pardoning January 6 defendants, dismantling federal task forces on election security and “weaponizing the Department of Justice to try to attempt to release Tina Peters.” She went further, alleging Trump “unlawfully attempted to interfere in state-run elections through executive order” and had “even allegedly sent political operatives to try to explore gaining access to county election equipment right here in Colorado.”

Her call to action was blunt: “There are three things we need to do. First, stop Trump in the courts. Second, mobilize and stand together. And third, beat MAGA.”

Griswold also pointed to her own record—automatic voter registration that has added nearly 800,000 new voters since 2020, a 70 percent increase in ballot drop boxes, parole re-enfranchisement and the Colorado Voting Rights Act passed this year. “We made it a crime to threaten election workers, a crime to have guns close to voting and a crime to try to steal elections with fake electors schemes,” she told attendees.

During the Q&A, she called Texas redistricting plans “an extreme MAGA power grab” and insisted Colorado would have secure elections in 2026, “but that’s not because of Donald Trump because he has made our elections less secure.” 

She also cited the “big lie” as the reason thirty-nine percent of county clerks have stepped down since 2020.

One voter’s alarm

For McWilliams, the contrast between Griswold’s official position and her partisan rhetoric was troubling. “Since November 2020 I’ve been trying to learn about our election system, and it’s blown me away to watch Jena Griswold take away local control over our elections,” she said.

She believes the imbalance in media access makes Griswold’s words carry even more weight. “We don’t have access to the media like these other people do… all they hear is her so-called professional opinion,” McWilliams said.

Her interest in elections grew after the 2020 cycle, when she began asking who really controlled local processes. “I’m old fashioned, I believe in American values and the Republican platform, and when I see injustice like what they’ve done with Tina Peters, I want to see this kind of hypocritical behavior stop,” she said.

That concern prompted her to share info about the zoom call with approximately 300 people, including local and state GOP leaders. “We need people to be vocal and visible or folks won’t take it seriously,” she said. 

A record under scrutiny

Griswold left out the problems that keep trailing her office. In 2024 staff put BIOS passwords for the state’s voting machines during active elections. She also skipped over the failed bid to kick Trump off Colorado’s ballot, which the Supreme Court threw out unanimously in Trump v. Anderson.

Republicans called for her resignation after the password leak, arguing she put politics above transparency by waiting until opponents went public before acknowledging the breach. She drew more fire when she blamed the mistake on a departing staffer rather than accepting responsibility herself.

Her office has also been criticized over voter roll maintenance. Conservative groups, including Judicial Watch, sued her office over voter roll maintenance. The case settled, but critics said it showed poor upkeep. That same year her staff also mailed registration postcards to about 30,000 non-citizens. Officials said none of those cards led to illegal voting, yet the mistake raised oversight questions.

Partisanship charges have followed her as well. Beyond the Trump ballot dispute, Republican lawmakers launched an impeachment attempt accusing her of overstepping her authority. The effort fell short but kept concerns about bias and overreach alive at the Capitol.

With that record in mind, McWilliams listened in on the Aug. 6 Indivisible call, which drew more than 400 people. McWilliams recalled the hosts saying they weren’t receiving questions, even as hands stayed raised, and she later shared screenshots that reflect the exchange.

Behind the group Griswold embraced

Indivisible, the progressive network Griswold addressed, was founded by former Democratic staffers in 2016 and modeled after Tea Party resistance tactics. Though it brands itself as grassroots, tax records show it received more than $8 million from George Soros’s Open Society network since 2017, along with millions more from the Tides Foundation. Its latest initiative, “One Million Rising,” aims to train one million activists nationwide in “strategic non-cooperation” to oppose Trump.

In June, the group organized more than 2,000 “No Kings” protests across the country timed to coincide with Trump’s military parade. Critics say the scale of these efforts shows Griswold wasn’t speaking to a neutral civic group but to one of the most powerful partisan operations in the nation.

Even some Democrats have raised alarms about the group’s influence. Rep. Jared Golden (D-ME) said he has stopped holding town halls because of Indivisible, calling it a “dark money group” that exploits campaign finance loopholes to fuel division. 

“They make clear that they want to purge the Democratic Party of anyone who doesn’t meet their definition of what it means to be a Democrat,” Golden said. “My perspective is, they call themselves Indivisible, but they are literally dedicated to division within the Democratic Party itself.” 

The Maine Democrat’s criticism is not unique. In Colorado, conservatives have said for years that Indivisible applies Tea Party methods but on a larger scale thanks to national donors. McWilliams views Griswold’s participation in the group’s forum as another example of politics intruding on election administration.

What’s at stake

Griswold is not just Colorado’s chief election officer—she is also a declared candidate for Attorney General in 2026. That dual role intensifies scrutiny of how she blends politics with the authority of her office.

McWilliams, who lives in Fort Collins, sees it as a wake-up call. “I believe our elections have been stolen from us because of our lack of paying attention,” she said. “We need to start waking up and standing up when things don’t seem right. Our country, our kids and our grandkids depend on it.”