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The numbers didn’t match: El Paso’s canvass exposes a statewide reporting failure the state never explained
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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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Campaign-finance storm erupts as Weiser, Bennet and Griswold face 3,674 alleged violations
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Colorado Based News, Approved, State, Substack

Campaign-finance storm erupts as Weiser, Bennet and Griswold face 3,674 alleged violations

Media Contact: Ethan Augreen | Colorado Based News New Campaign-Finance Complaints Target Michael Bennet, Phil Weiser After Similar Complaint Against Jena Griswold Upheld by Attorney General’s Office DENVER, CO — November 20, 2025 — Colorado’s 2026 election landscape was shaken today as two major new campaign-finance complaints were filed against gubernatorial candidates Philip Weiser and Michael Bennet, bringing the statewide total to 3,674 alleged violations by three of the Colorado Democratic Party’s most prominent candidates. “No Colorado citizen has ever filed an evidence-based campaign finance action this large, covering this many statewide candidates, with this volume of documented violations. This is unprecedented in scale,” said Ethan Au...
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Colorado chose Medicaid expansion and now the bill is past due
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado chose Medicaid expansion and now the bill is past due

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Our state is Medicaid (and government) poor Do you have a friend or relative that’s house poor? Truck poor? They live in (or own) something that’s beyond their means, and this financial decision makes their lives more difficult than it has to be? I read the Sun article linked first below recently and it struck me that our state is Medicaid poor. As a result of our state’s poor financial decisions, we have some fancy stuff, but we’re financially struggling right now. The thrust of the Sun’s piece is that our state’s budget gaps (the unhappy kind where we are short of money) are recurring and likely to continue to recur. Why? Medicaid’s a big reason, but there’s more to that picture. A couple of non-contiguous q...
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Western Slope Wins State Support In Long Fight To Preserve Shoshone Water Control
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The Colorado Sun, Approved, State

Western Slope Wins State Support In Long Fight To Preserve Shoshone Water Control

By: Shannon Mullane | The Colorado Sun The Colorado Water Conservation Board approved a proposal to use two powerful Colorado River water rights to help the environment. GOLDEN — In a momentous decision for the Western Slope, state water officials unanimously approved a controversial proposal to use two coveted Colorado River water rights to help the river itself.  Members of the Colorado Water Conservation Board voted to accept water rights tied to Shoshone Power Plant into its Instream Flow Program, which aims to keep water in streams to help the environment. The decision Wednesday is a historic step forward in western Colorado’s yearslong effort to secure the $99 million rights permanently. But some Front Range water providers pushed back during the hearings, worried ...
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Griswold Leads Democratic Secretaries of State Pressing DOJ and DHS Over Federal Use of Voter Data 
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Rocky Mountain Voice, State, Top Stories

Griswold Leads Democratic Secretaries of State Pressing DOJ and DHS Over Federal Use of Voter Data 

By Shaina Cole | Contributing Writer, Rocky Mountain Voice Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold is leading a group of Democratic election officials challenging the Trump administration over how federal agencies are using requested voter roll data. Their concerns are detailed in a four-page letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. The U.S. Department of Justice issued requests earlier this year for state-wide voter registration lists from multiple states, including Colorado.  In several cases, DOJ asked for “the full, unredacted statewide voter registration list, including registrants’ dates of birth, state driver’s license numbers, and last four digits of Social Security numbers.” Colorado’s request is documented in a May 12 lette...
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Colorado Ethics Commission Probes 17 Democrats Over Vail Retreat Contributions
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Colorado Politics, Approved, State

Colorado Ethics Commission Probes 17 Democrats Over Vail Retreat Contributions

By: Marianne Goodland | Colorado Politics The Colorado Independent Ethics Commission, on Tuesday, voted to move forward with investigations into 17 state Democratic lawmakers who have been accused of accepting illegal contributions to pay for an October retreat in Vail. Colorado Common Cause filed complaints against members of the Colorado Opportunity Caucus, a group of moderate Democrats in the General Assembly. The complaints are against: Sen. Lindsey Daugherty of Arvada, the group’s chair and Rep. Shannon Bird of Westminster. Bird has said she did not participate in the retreat, nor was she part of the conversation seeking $25,000 from One Main Street Colorado to pay for hotel rooms at the Sonnenalp Vail resort for the Oct. 3-5 retreat. She said in a statement Tuesday that s...
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Colorado’s Land Board swaps agriculture for a revenue experiment
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Colorado Accountability Project, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado’s Land Board swaps agriculture for a revenue experiment

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Acquiring the Lake Fork Ranch to expand “conservation opportunities”. I saw an interesting press release from our Governor recently. It’s linked first below.Quoting:“The Colorado State Board of Land Commissioners (State Land Board) has approved the acquisition of the approximately 800-acre Lake Fork Ranch, located just west of Leadville in Lake County.”Governor Polis, DNR Director Dan Gibbs, and State Land Board Director Nicole Rosmarino all gushed about the new acquisition. To save space, I attached their quotes from the press release as screenshot 1. The quotes here, touting success for rural communities (Polis) and preserving agricultural use (Gibbs), put me in mind of an earlier rundown of the Nat...
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Colorado Accused of Abandoning Constitution in Handling of Tina Peters Case
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Illinois Review, Approved, Commentary, State

Colorado Accused of Abandoning Constitution in Handling of Tina Peters Case

By Mark Vargas | Commentary, Illinois Review Colorado officials want the public to believe that keeping former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters in prison is justice. But when a woman’s health is collapsing, when she is rapidly declining, and when her continued confinement now poses a direct threat to her life, the law tells a very different story. Colorado is not simply neglecting its responsibility – it is violating its own constitution. Article II, Section 20 of the Colorado Constitution states in unmistakable terms: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” While this language mirrors the Eighth Amendment, Colorado’s Supreme Court has long interpreted its own provision more broadly than the federal min...
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Bill search reveals how Polis grew Medicaid—yet he blames rising costs
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Rocky Mountain Voice, Commentary, State, Top Stories

Bill search reveals how Polis grew Medicaid—yet he blames rising costs

By Cory Gaines | Commentary, Colorado Accountability Project Colorado bill search: a new tool for the toolbox The post that follows this one will lean on a search of Colorado legislation, so before we get to that, I wanted to show you how to search for bills. This is a great way to do some investigating on your own if you have a mind to.The first link below is to the Colorado legislature’s bill search page. It lets you search bills back to the 2016 legislative session with a variety of filters.Screenshot 1 shows the search bar. Going left to right ....Field A is for a keyword. In the post that follows this one, I looked at Medicaid-related bills, so I typed “Medicaid” there.Field B lets you search by chamber (House or Senate). My search was more general, I left it on the d...
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Billions in Marijuana Taxes and Crumbling Roads Sparks Online Fight Between Polis and DeSantis
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Complete Colorado, Approved, State

Billions in Marijuana Taxes and Crumbling Roads Sparks Online Fight Between Polis and DeSantis

By: Savana Kascak | Complete Colorado DENVER–An online beef erupted between Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Wednesday evening on X (previously Twitter) over legalized marijuana and Colorado’s poor road conditions. In a thread of posts, the Florida governor said Colorado’s declining marijuana taxes have not helped alleviate anything for the state, rather the recent decrease in marijuana sales is due to a surge in the black market caused by high taxes on legal weed. The claims led Governor Polis to jump in the conversation, defending his record. The battle at the keyboard started from a post made by Florida’s Voice, highlighting a survey saying a majority of Floridians want the right to vote on marijuana legalization themselves, “not have...
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