By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice
While Colorado was preparing to challenge new federal election-security requirements in court, the election office in the state’s most populous county was moving ahead with plans to strengthen its own election security under the same grant program.
Six days before Attorney General Phil Weiser sued the Trump administration over election conditions attached to Homeland Security Grant Program funding, El Paso County Clerk Steve Schleiker submitted a $79,850 proposal seeking federal money for an independent review of his office’s election security.
The proposal isn’t for new voting equipment. It would hire an outside firm to examine the county’s election operation through cybersecurity testing, penetration testing, physical-security assessments, incident-response planning and regional training exercises.
The local deadline was 5 p.m. July 17, according to the application.
Submission instructions from the Colorado Springs Urban Area Security Initiative application. Schleiker provided the complete proposal to RMV on request.
The Pikes Peak Regional Office of Emergency Management, which administers the Colorado Springs grant process, confirmed the July 17 deadline. Andrew Notbohm, the regional office’s emergency management and recovery director, said it “was used to allow sufficient time for the Urban Area Working Group to review and prioritize projects before submission.” He said one proposal came in for election security, for $79,850—the amount and category of El Paso County’s request.
Schleiker said his office received a general update in May before FEMA released its notice. The application materials describing the mandatory election-security spending arrived in early July from the Colorado Springs UASI administrator, shortly before the July 17 deadline.
Colorado’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management later extended a separate state deadline to Aug. 5 because of the wildfires, but Schleiker said that extension did not apply to the Colorado Springs Urban Area Security Initiative process.
The states argue the federal government lacks the authority to attach election conditions to homeland security grants, and that the conditions are unrelated to the grants’ counterterrorism purpose.
Schleiker didn’t weigh in on that legal dispute. He described the process of applying and what his county will need if the conditions remain in place.
Two of FEMA’s five conditions put the work on Secretary of State Jena Griswold as Colorado’s chief election official.
“As of today, our office has not been consulted by DHSEM or the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office regarding the implementation of these two conditions, nor have we received specific implementation instructions through the Urban Area Working Group,” he wrote in response to questions from RMV.
What the proposal would fund
The proposal shows what one Colorado county would do with the money if it comes. FEMA requires every state and urban area to spend at least 3 percent of their state homeland security and urban area funds on election security. For the Colorado Springs urban area, that comes to about $82,728.
Titled the El Paso County Election Infrastructure Cybersecurity & Operational Resilience Initiative, it would expand the county’s existing election-security work rather than replace voting equipment.
Most of the funding would support an independent cybersecurity assessment using the National Institute of Standards and Technology framework, network vulnerability and penetration testing, physical-security reviews of election facilities, incident-response planning and regional tabletop exercises involving law enforcement and emergency management partners.
The proposal’s prioritized budget. The independent cybersecurity assessment is the largest single line at $20,000, followed by network vulnerability and penetration testing at $12,000. Document provided by Schleiker.
The proposal also lists the Secretary of State’s Elections Division among several regional partners.
Asked whether the amount was intentional, Schleiker said it was not.
“The $79,850.00 figure was developed from the estimated costs of an earlier, broader project scope,” he wrote. “It was not calculated or sized to approximate the Colorado Springs Urban Area’s three-percent election-security requirement. Its proximity to the approximately $82,728 set-aside was coincidental.”
He said other qualifying election-security projects could satisfy the remainder of the urban area’s required investment.
What the county still needs
Schleiker said his office received information about the funding opportunity through the Colorado Springs Urban Area Security Initiative process, not through direct communication from the Secretary of State’s Office. He also said his office has not submitted a written request to the Secretary of State for implementation guidance, and has not received one.
Notbohm said his office communicates with the state’s homeland security division routinely on grant administration and directed questions about the election requirement to that division or FEMA.
One federal condition requires the state to verify the citizenship of everyone in Colorado’s voter registration database through the federal SAVE system within 120 days of accepting the award. Schleiker expects that review to be handled centrally because the Secretary of State maintains the statewide voter registration system.
Schleiker said the county could be left to handle much of the follow-up, including researching records referred back by the state, contacting voters and meeting notice and due-process requirements before changing voter registrations.
“In a county with more than 500,000 ‘active’ registered voters, even a relatively small percentage of records requiring individual review could create a significant workload,” Schleiker said.
He also said the election-worker citizenship requirement could require new verification during hiring and onboarding, changes to vendor agreements and additional recordkeeping.
What El Paso already does
Colorado already bars counties using the Dominion Democracy Suite 5.17 voting system from tabulating QR-code ballots, as RMV reported Thursday.
Schleiker offered one clarification.
“Our ballots contain a QR code for administrative purposes, which is used to identify the ballot style,” he said. “Those QR codes do not contain the voter’s selections and are not used to count votes.”
El Paso County tabulates votes from voter-marked ovals on paper ballots, not from QR codes or bar codes. Accessible ballot-marking devices are available at every Voter Service and Polling Center, and those devices also produce paper ballots counted from the marked ovals.
Schleiker said the county should not have to replace equipment or change how it conducts elections to satisfy the federal condition. Instead, he expects the state to document that El Paso County already complies.
He also said the proposed work focuses on the systems surrounding elections, not the voting equipment itself.
“Our voting and tabulation equipment is completely air-gapped, and is not connected to the internet, Wi-Fi, or Bluetooth,” Schleiker said.
The proposed funding would strengthen surrounding facilities, administrative systems, personnel practices and response capabilities, he said.
Still unanswered
RMV sent six questions to the Secretary of State’s Office on July 23 asking which federal requirements Colorado believes conflict with current law, whether the state already complies with any of them and whether Colorado would seek the funding and comply with the federal conditions if the lawsuit is unsuccessful. The office has not responded.
RMV also filed a Colorado Open Records Act request Friday seeking communications the Secretary of State’s Office sent to county clerks, the Colorado County Clerks Association and Urban Area Security Initiative administrators about the election-security conditions and the three-percent election-security requirement.
FEMA set a July 24 application deadline and expects to announce awards by Sept. 30.
The lawsuit was filed in Rhode Island. The procedures would be written in Denver.
“Before we can determine the full operational impact, cost, staffing requirements, or timeline, we need formal guidance from the Secretary of State identifying which individuals must be verified, who will conduct the checks, what information counties must collect, how inconclusive results will be resolved, and how compliance will be documented. We would welcome the opportunity to participate in developing those procedures, particularly given the size and complexity of election operations in El Paso County,” Schleiker said.