Colorado calls its elections a model. Mark Cook says voters have lost oversight of them

By RMV Staff | Rocky Mountain Voice

Colorado’s top election officials call the state’s voting system a national model. Secretary of State Jena Griswold has described it as the “gold standard,” pointing to first-in-the-nation risk-limiting audits, bipartisan checks and ballot tracking. Mark Cook argues that the people the system is supposed to answer to — voters, and the county clerks closest to them — have lost meaningful oversight of how it runs.

Cook made that case during a recent appearance on Unleashed with Heidi Ganahl, where the conversation ranged from election transparency and county clerks to Tina Peters and Gov. Jared Polis. Cook’s claim is not that one party rigged a result. It is structural: that administration has drifted upward over time, from county clerks to state agencies, private vendors and coordinating bodies, until the people closest to voters have the least say.

The conversation comes as primary ballots begin landing in mailboxes across Colorado and election security remains a point of debate nationwide. 

A Rasmussen Reports survey released in February found 63 percent of likely voters said they were concerned electronic voting systems could allow votes to be changed remotely through internet connections, while 39 percent said voting machines make it easier to cheat in elections.

“It’s not a Democrat versus Republican thing. It really isn’t. We are all getting abused,” Cook said.

An evidence-based turn

Cook came to election work from a career in technology, not politics. Before 2020, Cook wasn’t involved in election issues. Then he got a call asking him to head to Washington, D.C., and see for himself what had happened after the election.

One trip turned into another. Before long, he was digging through election records, studying voting systems and helping citizen groups around the country investigate questions about election administration.

Today he travels the country through his Hand Count Road Show, meeting with local groups and talking about election transparency and oversight.

“I’m an evidence-based guy, so I went out there just to find out what had happened,” he said. He said the experience changed how he looked at elections, government agencies and the information voters are given about both.

The ‘handcuffed’ clerks

Cook says the problem isn’t the clerks themselves. He says most county clerks are trying to do their jobs but are constrained by state laws, election rules and the systems they are required to use.

“I believe most all election officials are good, honest, patriotic Americans, but they are handcuffed by the state, by the laws that they have to follow,” he said.

Cook also praised El Paso County Clerk Steve Schleiker, who left the Colorado County Clerks Association earlier this year.

Schleiker cited concerns about transparency, independence and outside influence when he withdrew El Paso County from active membership and stepped down as the association’s vice president.

Cook said Schleiker’s decision reflected frustrations he believes many local election officials feel but rarely discuss publicly.

Cook isn’t new to Colorado election fights. He worked with Ganahl during a two-year review of Douglas County’s 2022 election results, work that eventually led to several RMV reports on recount procedures, ballot records and election oversight.

State officials point to paper ballots, signature verification and risk-limiting audits as evidence the system is working as intended.

Cook says trust comes from more than audits. And that those safeguards do not address what he sees as the larger problem: whether citizens can independently verify key parts of the process.

The Peters commutation

Peters’ release came up during the interview. Cook said he doesn’t know Polis and has no way of knowing why the governor commuted her sentence.

Instead, he talked about legacy and the choices public officials make while they’re in office.

“None of us get out of this alive,” Cook said. “You have to determine what impact you want to leave on society.”

Cook said he doesn’t know Polis, but he’d welcome the chance to talk with him. He said the same about Secretary of State Jena Griswold despite years of disagreements over Colorado’s election system.

“I’d be willing to talk to anyone, because the truth is the truth,” he said.

A call for local control

A former Democrat himself, Cook believes trust in elections starts at the local level. Cook’s larger point is that elections weren’t meant to be managed from the top down. He argues voters lose confidence when decisions move farther away from the communities they affect.

He doesn’t expect Colorado’s system to change in the next few months, so his near-term answer is an unusual one — citizens organizing their own checks where they can, what he calls a “parallel election.” 

He wants residents to conduct their own counts where possible and compare the results with official election totals. The longer-term fix, in his telling, is putting the count back in local hands, county by county — in his words, “we, the people, count our own dots.”

“I hope that the day comes where the good Democrats also stand with the good Republicans and demand we fix all this corruption in every possible facet of our elections,” Cook said.

Cook is scheduled to speak on election integrity June 26 at RMV’s Freedom Fest in Castle Rock.

The full conversation with Cook is on Unleashed with Heidi Ganahl, streaming on Spotify, YouTube, and Rumble.