Colorado GOP says no race changed: Delegates and experts point to broader system failures

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

They came to Pueblo to vote. Instead, many spent hours in the cold, waiting.

At the April 12 Colorado Republican state assembly, delegates stood in line outside the Massari Event Center early Saturday morning as credentialing stalled. Some leaned on canes. Others searched for places to sit. What was expected to be a long but routine day quickly turned into something else.

In the days since the assembly, that experience has taken on new weight.

For party officials, the issue has been explained. For many who were there, it raised deeper concerns.

Party says results stand

In the days following the assembly, questions focused on an 80-ballot discrepancy between the number of votes cast and the official credentialing report.

Colorado GOP Executive Director Alec Hanna said the explanation made sense.

“This was not a failure of identity verification, but rather of attendance tracking,” Hanna said, noting that each delegate was verified by photo ID and each credential was marked to prevent duplicate voting.

The problem, he said, came down to incomplete scanning of QR codes used to track attendance—not the ballots themselves.

“It’s an issue with the process, not an issue with the output.”

Hanna said the discrepancy didn’t affect the outcome of any race.

Hanna also pointed to how the issue was handled on the floor in real time. As the discrepancy was identified, he said leadership walked delegates through the situation and outlined options before the body voted on how to proceed.

“Not that I’ve seen… mostly the process,” Hanna said of any backlash, adding that he believes most delegates accepted the explanation once it was understood.

A long day for delegates

For those on the ground, the problems started before any ballots were cast.

Bea Harnish, a delegate from Chaffee County, arrived before sunrise expecting doors to open at 7 a.m.

“At 6:45am Saturday morning I was standing in line in breezy 43-degree weather,” she wrote in an email describing the day.

Instead, she and hundreds of others waited outside for hours as credentialing stalled, reportedly due to internet issues.

“We could only assume that credentialing could not happen with the Internet down,” she wrote.

Once inside, the challenges didn’t end. Harnish described being seated on backless benches in a corner, struggling to see the screen, and facing a long day that stretched well into the evening.

“My plans to be able to drive two hours home before dark disappeared by 7pm,” she wrote.

“It has taken two days for my old body to recover.”

Her experience, she said, left her with questions about planning, accessibility and contingency preparation.

Breakdowns beyond logistics

Maria Orms, a gubernatorial candidate and cybersecurity professional who previously outlined her concerns in a guest commentary published by RMV, said what she saw went beyond inconvenience.

“It wasn’t practical… to print badges the morning of with over 3,000 people expected,” Orms said in an interview.

Orms said she arrived early as a candidate and ended up stepping in to help as delays began to build. With crowds backing up at the entrance, she asked organizers to open one of the metal detectors as a dedicated entry point for candidates, volunteers and media trying to get inside.

“They had three metal detectors, and everything was bottlenecked,” she said. “Candidates were trying to get in, volunteers were trying to get in, media was trying to get in—it was all backed up.”

From there, she said she helped direct people through that entrance, working to clear space and keep movement going.

“It created anxiety… stress… confusion… and possibly even some medical issues,” she said.

More concerning to her were the procedures that were supposed to guide the process.

“Not one of the procedures in that email was followed. Not one,” Orms said, referring to pre-event guidance sent to candidates about security and check-in protocols.

She pointed to multiple changes made in real time, including abandoning a planned county-based check-in system in favor of alphabetical processing without explanation or vote.

“They changed it… no explanation, no vote,” she said.

That shift, she said, removed a layer of personal recognition she considers fundamental to security.

“That’s a security procedure,” she said of the original county-based check-in system. “In the military, they taught us that personal recognition is the first line of defense.”

Other breakdowns followed. Trained volunteers prepared to assist with ballot verification were dismissed the night before, she said, only for organizers to recruit untrained help from the crowd during the event.

“They just pulled people out of the crowd… no training,” she said.

What she saw that day, she said, wasn’t a single breakdown.

“The whole thing is a system failure,” she said.

“There seem to be holes on every level.”

Questions without answers

Some of the confusion stemmed from what delegates were told—and what they weren’t.

Orms said she heard from party chairs that a database used for credentialing may have been compromised or unusable, though she emphasized she had no official confirmation.

“I have not seen one official letter in explanation of what happened,” she said.

In that vacuum, she said, speculation spread quickly.

“When you don’t have accurate, precise knowledge, speculation takes over.”

That lack of clarity is part of what concerns her most.

“When this many things go wrong… you can’t be clear on anything,” she said.

Decisions on the floor

As the discrepancy became clear during the assembly, party leadership outlined several options for delegates.

A motion to launch a formal investigation into the credentialing issue was ultimately rejected after debate.

However, a separate motion passed to preserve all ballots and records, placing them under the custody of incoming Vice Chair Eric Grossman.

The votes moved the assembly forward—but they didn’t resolve every concern.

At the same time, party leaders pointed to safeguards they say held throughout the process.

Hanna also emphasized that multiple safeguards remained in place throughout the process. Every delegate was verified against a photo ID before receiving a credential and ballot, and those credentials were checked again at the ballot box.

“We are confident that each ballot cast was submitted by a duly authorized delegate,” Hanna said, adding that the discrepancy reflected missed scans, not unauthorized voting.

He said many delegates recognized the issue themselves once it was explained. “Right away people are saying, well, I didn’t get scanned,” he said, pointing to that moment as part of why the explanation was broadly accepted.

A question of confidence

With the June 30 primary approaching, those questions now extend beyond what happened in Pueblo to what comes next.

Orms said that distinction carries less weight when trust is already in doubt.

“Without confidence… the legitimacy of any outcome will remain in question,” she wrote in earlier commentary.

For party leaders, the bottom line hasn’t changed—the results stand.

For many delegates and observers, the conversation hasn’t ended there. They’re focused on how the day unfolded.

And for the party, it leaves a challenge that goes beyond counting ballots.

The results of the assembly may be settled.

Whether confidence in the process holds going forward is still an open question.