Rocky Mountain Voice

Tag: Secretary of State

Is Experience Optional? Critics Challenge Griswold’s Attorney General Bid
Colorado Politics, Approved, Commentary, State

Is Experience Optional? Critics Challenge Griswold’s Attorney General Bid

By Eric Sondermann | Commentary, Colorado Politics If you were in a child custody dispute with a former spouse, would you hire an attorney with experience in family law or would you trust your case to an operative with virtually zero mastery? If you were getting ready to sue your employer for unpaid wages or a toxic workplace, would you enlist a lawyer with a background in employment statutes or would you put your fate in the hands of someone who had never really practiced law? If you were a doctor being charged with medical malpractice, would you retain a novice lawyer who had never argued a case? What kind of attorney would you retain to defend your teenager accused of shoplifting? Or to represent you in a complicated real estate transaction? Or to handle a br...
Cleaning the rolls, cutting the cost: How Las Animas County found a better way
Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Cleaning the rolls, cutting the cost: How Las Animas County found a better way

By Bob Cooper, COIFFE Director | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice The Clerk and Election team in Las Animas County also adopted a “best practice” to improve Colorado Elections while reducing costs. We now have our largest Colorado county (El Paso County) and a medium-sized county (Las Animas) using a commercial credit agency to flag registered voters who no longer reside at the address in SCORE. SCORE is the Statewide Colorado Voter Registration and Elections system.        These two counties demonstrate leadership by pursuing real “Gold Standard” election operations.  Every Colorado voter should demand other counties implement this best practice because it significantly reduces costs associated with undeliverable ballots while at the same time reduces the opportuni...
El Paso Co. found a way to cut undeliverable ballots and clean voter rolls—Colorado leaders looked away
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...
El Paso Co. clerk resigns leadership role and pulls county from clerks association over transparency concerns
Ashe in America, Approved, Commentary, State

El Paso Co. clerk resigns leadership role and pulls county from clerks association over transparency concerns

By Ashe in America | Commentary, Ashe in America The CCCA is a Non-Governmental Organization that Generally Serves as the Authority on Colorado Elections El Paso County Clerk & Recorder Steve Schleiker has quietly resigned as Vice President of the Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA), and he has withdrawn El Paso County from active membership in the non-governmental organization. Schleiker was candid about his decision in an email with a Colorado voter who reached out after noticing his name had been removed from the CCCA leadership list. “After careful consideration, I made the decision several weeks ago to resign as Vice President of the Colorado County Clerks Association and to withdraw El Paso County from active membership. This was not a decision I made li...
Griswold blocks DOJ voter roll review while data flows elsewhere
Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Griswold blocks DOJ voter roll review while data flows elsewhere

By Linda Good | Guest Commentary, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold wants the public to believe that a lawful voter-roll records request from the U.S. Department of Justice is an unprecedented threat to voter privacy. That framing is not principled. It’s strategic. When the DOJ asked Colorado to provide unredacted voter data, including full names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers, and partial Social Security numbers, Griswold didn’t offer a sober legal analysis—she offered a slogan.  In her office’s statement she said, “The DOJ can take a hike; it does not have a legal right to the information. Colorado will not help Donald Trump undermine our elections and hurt the American people.”  ...
From question to confrontation: Peters’ legal team forces Colorado courts to choose
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

From question to confrontation: Peters’ legal team forces Colorado courts to choose

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice One day after the constitutional question facing Colorado courts came into focus, attorneys for former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters moved to force an answer. Late Tuesday, Peters’ legal team filed an urgent motion asking the Colorado Court of Appeals to determine whether it still has jurisdiction to proceed at all, given a presidential pardon and what her attorneys argue are unresolved violations of federal election law. The filing marks a shift from explanation to escalation. Yesterday’s reporting centered on the unresolved authority question now hanging over the case. This motion is the defense’s attempt to compel the court to decide it. It follows a Dec. 8 federal court order that declined to resolve Peters’ constitutional cla...
Noncitizen Testifies She Voted Repeatedly In Georgia Elections
The Federalist, Approved, National

Noncitizen Testifies She Voted Repeatedly In Georgia Elections

By: Brianna Lyman | The Federalist A woman who moved to Georgia from the Bahamas 30 years ago and is not a citizen admitted during a Dec. 9 State Election Board (SEB) hearing that she has voted multiple times. It is illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Clayton County resident Melanie Pickett is a Bahamian native but has lived in the Peach State for approximately 30 years. According to Pickett, she does not “know” “how it happened.” “I got a driver’s license … and then I started getting” voting-related information “in the mail, and I said, ‘Oh, OK.’ And then I got a jury duty [summons]. So I went to jury duty, and at the end of the information [sheet] you had to fill out, it said, ‘Are you a U.S. citizen,’ and I said, ‘no’ and they told...
Allegations of Improper Spending Mount Against Bennet Campaign
Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Allegations of Improper Spending Mount Against Bennet Campaign

By Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics Three state campaign finance complaints have been filed against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Denver, tied to his campaign for governor in 2026. A fourth is likely, sources have told Colorado Politics. The first two were filed on Sept. 24 and on Nov. 4 by Alyssa Holladay of Denver. Her political affiliation is unknown. The first two complaints were consolidated by the secretary of state’s elections division on Nov. 17. A response is due from the Bennet campaign on Dec. 3. The September complaint said Bennet is a candidate for both governor in 2026 and for the U.S. Senate in 2028 and he is actively fundraising and spending money for both races. Bennet, the complaint noted, filed a candidate affidavit for the Senate race on March 11, 2...
AI Review Flags Hundreds of Reporting Gaps for Griswold and Weiser Campaigns
The Denver Gazette, Approved, State

AI Review Flags Hundreds of Reporting Gaps for Griswold and Weiser Campaigns

By: Marianne Goodland | The Denver Gazette Using artificial intelligence as analytical tool, a resident of Longmont has filed complaints against two prominent Colorado Democrats, alleging multiple campaign finance violations. The complaints are among a growing number of campaign finance allegations against individuals running for some of Colorado’s top jobs. What’s unique with the complaints is the use of AI as a data or analytical tool. On Nov. 20, Jeffrey Ethan Au Green of Longmont filed a complaint against Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is running for the Democratic nomination for governor against U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet. Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who is running to succeed Weiser, was the subject of a Nov. 2 complaint, also filed by Au Green. Four Democrats ar...
The numbers didn’t match: El Paso’s canvass exposes a statewide reporting failure the state never explained
Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

The numbers didn’t match: El Paso’s canvass exposes a statewide reporting failure the state never explained

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado voters expected a routine post–Election Day canvass after the November 4 coordinated election. Instead, El Paso County became ground zero for the latest crisis involving Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office after a canvass board member noticed that the numbers on the state’s website didn’t match the county’s certified reports. The mismatch surfaced publicly after businessman and election analyst Peter Bernegger posted screenshots of the Election Night Reporting (ENR) CSV file on Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/PeterBernegger/status/1991610012989329540?s=20 What began as one discrepancy quickly revealed a statewide reporting failure. The ENR CSV file published by the Secretary of State contained contest-level totals that ...

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