Outside investigators are needed for Colorado’s leaked password scandal

What exactly did Griswold do between Oct. 23, when Secretary of State Jena Griswold learned that hundreds of voting machine passwords had been publicly posted in a spreadsheet, and Nov. 1, when Gov. Jared Polis intervened to demand the passwords be changed? Security breach?

Curious people want to know.

Because this feels like déjà vu with Jena Griswold.

When we endorsed Griswold’s Republican opponent in 2022, we wrote, “Griswold has left us unimpressed with her unwillingness to address emerging issues and issues and even her reluctance to admit when mistakes were made or things could be improved.”

Here we are two years later, in the middle of one of the most scrutinized elections of all time, and Griswold’s team makes a crucial mistake, and the Secretary of State sits on it for at least a week before taking action.

We are confused about the whole ordeal.

Colorado elections are very secure – every voter casts a paper ballot that is retained for recounts and risk-limiting audits. These ballots are publicly available and can be cross-checked with the public list of participating voters to ensure that the numbers are correct and to ensure that the voters are real, eligible, living Coloradans.

The leaked passwords were one of two passwords needed to access the voting machines, and the machines are kept in secure areas that are constantly monitored.

All of this means that it is unlikely that any harm was caused by publishing the passwords as early as August 8th and continuing through October 23rd.

However, you don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to believe that the passwords may not have been accidentally leaked. Did a fraudulent secretary of state — someone with delusions of grandeur on the scale of former Mesa County official and recorder Tina Peters — intentionally leak the passwords? Was the intent to spoil the election, or did he or she conspire with someone else – a Democrat or a Republican – to crack the voting machine?

Because of these unanswered questions, an external investigation is necessary. Griswold has said she will hire an outside company to investigate the incident, but we believe the investigation must be completely outside of her control. Gov. Jared Polis has done an excellent job on this matter in Griswold’s absence and should do so again by forcing the investigator out of his office.

Peters used her role as an employee to give someone access to voting machines in Mesa County and steal data related to the election. Their antics didn’t do any real harm, and the data proved what most Coloradans already knew: the election was safe and valid.

But that didn’t stop Peters from jetting around the country claiming she had evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.

Similarly, it was someone involved in discrediting the 2020 election on behalf of former President Donald Trump who first discovered the passwords in a hidden sheet of a voting equipment database that could be downloaded from the Secretary of State’s website. Shawn Smith signed an affidavit sent to Griswold’s office on Oct. 29 saying he downloaded the spreadsheets on Aug. 8, Oct. 16 and Oct. 23. The link to the spreadsheets was removed on October 24 when Griswold’s office noticed it. However, no official information about the link was released until Smith and the Colorado Republican Party sent out public notices about the passwords they had obtained.