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Tag: Election Integrity

Colorado fought scrutiny—until a lawsuit forced a cleanup
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Colorado fought scrutiny—until a lawsuit forced a cleanup

By RMV Editorial Board | Rocky Mountain Voice Back in 2019, Colorado’s voter rolls were already showing the problem—if anyone in charge had been willing to look at them. Forty counties had more registered voters than eligible citizens. Call it whatever you want—but it’s not normal. That wasn’t a partisan claim. It wasn’t a social media theory. It was data. And for a long time, it just sat there. No press conference. No urgency. No statewide fix. Then something happened. Someone sued. The lawsuit no one was supposed to take seriously Eventually, someone stopped waiting for the state to act. By October 2020, it had crossed a line. Judicial Watch took it to federal court, filing suit against Jena Griswold under the National Voter Registration Act. An...
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He lost once. Now he’s back: Why David Willson jumped into Colorado’s AG race late
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

He lost once. Now he’s back: Why David Willson jumped into Colorado’s AG race late

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice For ten years, David Willson stood in Colorado courtrooms defending parents accused of neglect—many of them homeless, addicted or on the verge of losing their children. He learned quickly the system doesn’t operate in clean lines. “I went into that work thinking people were just partying and getting high. It took me about six months to realize they’re trying to get high because their life is so miserable.” Now, his daughter is entering law enforcement. “She said, we arrest a lot of homeless people who have warrants.” For Willson, that isn’t a contradiction. It’s the reality he’s seen from both sides. “You have to understand what people are dealing with. But you also have to enforce the law.” He got in late. The Republica...
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From Kazakhstan to Colorado: Secretary of State candidate James Wiley’s plan to scrap electronic voting machines
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

From Kazakhstan to Colorado: Secretary of State candidate James Wiley’s plan to scrap electronic voting machines

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice James Wiley was 7 on Election Night 2000. He remembers the decorations from his birthday staying up for two more weeks while the country waited to find out who had won. He didn’t understand hanging chads or voting machines. At the time, he was living in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where his missionary family had been since he was three months old. What stuck with him from those years wasn’t the mechanics of elections. It was how power operated. He’s 32 and running for Colorado Secretary of State as a Republican, after years working on election cases and a stint as executive director of the Libertarian Party.  What he’s saying on the campaign trail isn’t new for him. The push to get rid of electronic voting machines and move to hand-cou...
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What Sets J.J. McKinzie Apart in Colorado’s Secretary of State Race
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

What Sets J.J. McKinzie Apart in Colorado’s Secretary of State Race

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice J.J. McKinzie is one of four Republicans running for the open Secretary of State seat,  and he is not running on name recognition. He is running on a resume that looks nothing like most politicians'. McKinzie spent more than 25 years inside some of the largest companies in the world, advising on regulatory compliance and operational efficiency. He has owned small businesses, led nonprofits, and homeschooled his children for over two decades.  He holds degrees from Colorado State University, the University of Houston-Clear Lake, and Charis Bible College, with training in psychology, business, technology, futures studies, and biblical studies, including five master’s degrees. "In consulting, I had to deliver...
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A system under scrutiny: Colorado’s election system faces clash over how it’s verified
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

A system under scrutiny: Colorado’s election system faces clash over how it’s verified

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice When President Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to compile a nationwide citizenship list and share it with state election officials, it set off a debate in Colorado that hasn’t slowed. So what does that actually mean for Colorado? RMV asked two people on opposite sides of the issue—and got two very different answers. Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA), says Colorado’s system is strong, continuously maintained and already uses the federal tools referenced in the order. Bob Cooper, a director with the Colorado Institute for Fair Elections, argues the system cannot be independently audited for accuracy—and that’s the problem. The divide isn’t about whether the system w...
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El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away

By Bob Cooper, COIFFE Director | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice A $50,000 statewide solution was offered—and ignored—while Colorado processed more than 323,000 undeliverable ballots in a single year, costing over a million. This story should get your attention and maybe even make you angry if you care about election integrity issues—or simply about wasting taxpayer dollars in every county in Colorado. Get this: El Paso County has been implementing a common-sense voter roll maintenance process, a true “Gold Standard” process, to reduce election costs and clean up the “dirty,” bloated voter rolls. There is potential for this improved process to save thousands of dollars in election costs every year for every county in Colorado. To help the state implement this, El...
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The numbers didn’t add up: A judge says Colorado’s elections office didn’t either
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The numbers didn’t add up: A judge says Colorado’s elections office didn’t either

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Jonathan Ambler read the article more than once. Republicans in Pueblo County had reported tens of thousands in contributions. Democrats—who had controlled local politics for generations and operated out of their own headquarters—had reported barely a few thousand. It didn’t square. So he started digging. What he found led to two formal complaints, a dismissal by Colorado’s top elections office, and now, a Denver judge ordering that same office to go back and do the work again. A court steps in where the state stepped away On March 26, Denver District Court Judge Bruce Jones ruled that the Colorado Secretary of State’s office improperly dismissed Ambler’s campaign finance complaints against the Pueblo County Democratic Party. The...
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Report Suggests ActBlue Misled Congress On Foreign Donation Safeguards
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The Federalist, Approved, National

Report Suggests ActBlue Misled Congress On Foreign Donation Safeguards

By Brianna Lyman | The Federalist ‘This presents a substantial risk for ActBlue.’ ActBlue told Congress in 2023 that it took “multilayered” steps to “root out” illegal donations from foreign citizens. But it turns out “some of the steps … described were not always followed,” according to a new report from The New York Times (NYT). ActBlue Chief Executive Regina Wallace-Jones claimed in a 2023 letter to Congress that ActBlue conducted “‘multilayered’ screenings of contributions that helped ‘root out’ those from overseas,” the New York Times reported. Such screening claimed to have included processing donations that came from foreign mailing addresses only if the donor had a U.S. passport number. Wallace-Jones also reportedly told Congress that ActBlue would refund don...
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DOJ Targets ActBlue Allegations As Election Integrity Concerns Grow
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TownHall.com, Approved, National

DOJ Targets ActBlue Allegations As Election Integrity Concerns Grow

By Scott McClallen | Townhall Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche suggested that the Department of Justice is investigating ActBlue after a New York Times report said that ActBlue might have lied to Congress about vetting foreign donations.  Blanche told TV show host Jesse Waters: "That's a priority of this administration and this DOJ. It's something that a lot of people have been worried about it for a very long time. You can rest assured that it includes the Department of Justice and it includes me." https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2039864164244492298?s=20 READ THE FULL ARTICLE AT TOWNHALL
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“Single most insecure person I’ve ever encountered”: Former Griswold aide breaks silence ahead of AG race
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

“Single most insecure person I’ve ever encountered”: Former Griswold aide breaks silence ahead of AG race

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Reese Edwards didn’t plan to speak out. He spent less than a year inside Colorado’s Secretary of State’s office before leaving in 2020, frustrated and burned out enough to walk away. He wasn’t looking to revisit any of it. Now, with Jena Griswold running for attorney general, he’s speaking up—and doing it on the record. “I love democracy with an almost religious belief,” he told RMV. “The idea of people deciding for themselves how they will govern themselves. That’s why I took the job.” Edwards, who served as Director of Government and Public Affairs, is now going on record with a warning. He says what he witnessed inside the Secretary of State’s office—erratic leadership, blurred lines between political ambition and public duty ...
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