By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project
I well remember how I felt when Jena Griswold got her second term as Secretary of State. She ran against a Republican who, though eminently qualified not to mention competent, was about as plain-Jane as they come. She was boring. Oh, and she said all the right things for Trump-avoidant voters about elections and voting machines.
And yet, Jena won handily.
When I woke to those election results I kept asking myself how Jena continues to fail upwards. It is a mystery to me. I get party line voting, something many engage in and parties depend on, but even at that how does Jena Griswold survive primaries and contests with people who are obviously better?
I read the story linked below about Griswold recently which brought that question up to the surface again.
The story details how the Secretary of State’s Office (again) messed up something online, revealing information that it shouldn’t have, this time confidential voter information instead of passwords. Oh, and the information about the voters was up for a couple weeks.
Let me pause there if you’re not familiar. A confidential voter is someone whose personal information** like address, etc. is hidden for some safety reason. It might be a policewoman or a judge (or anyone who has a legitimate need for protecting their information due to safety concerns).
The Secretary’s Office accidentally made public the information of an estimated 130K confidential voters, and they know that 59 of those profiles were accessed in the about two week period that the information was visible.
To her credit, Griswold did accept responsibility and has sought to fix the issue. A couple quotes from the article flesh this out:
“The [Secretary of State’s] department contacted 54 of the affected voters directly and mailed letters to the remaining five. Griswold said that, based on those conversations and IP addresses, they believe the voters accessed those profiles themselves.”
“Griswold took responsibility for the error and said additional safeguards are being put in place. ‘Well, ultimately, it is my office, and I apologize for the error. This should not have happened at this point. We have various steps in place to avoid system changes from going wrong after coders update any of our infrastructure; there’s quality assurance and then another check. And unfortunately, though that was not enough, so we are taking additional steps, including automated quality assurance,’ Griswold said.”
That’s reasonable to expect and I’m glad to see her actually taking responsibility (after skirting and shirking on previous things). Were this a single problem in her tenure, it’d be easier to swallow, however.
It’s not. There’ve been multiple problems in the Griswold Secretary’s office, problems which thus far don’t seem to disqualify her in the eyes of some voters.
Will this one be the straw that breaks the camel’s back?
**Information about registered voters like name and address are actually public record and accessible upon request. More in the second link below.
https://www.denver7.com/news/local-news/colorado-secretary-of-states-website-exposed-133-000-confidential-voter-profiles-for-11-days
https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/FAQs/VoterRegistrationData.html
Related:
Turns out (via a news break happening after the above was written) one of the victims of the data release is none other than Griswold’s Republican opponent. More in the story below.
https://www.cpr.org/2026/08/31/colorado-voter-data-breach-michael-allen-jena-griswold
READ THE FULL COMMENTARY AT COLORADO ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
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