Trump campaign attorneys have demanded that Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold take immediate action to secure the state’s elections following the release of partial voting system passwords online.
In a letter sent to Griswold on Wednesday, the attorneys for former President Donald Trump’s Republican campaign said the password disclosure violates state law and “undermines the integrity of our elections.” They asked that Griswold immediately identify counties affected by the security breach, notify them, direct them to stop processing mail-in ballots and prepare to re-scan all ballots.
“We recognize these steps may be an inconvenience for your office and for the affected counties. But this inconvenience is necessary because it is the only way to guarantee that the elections equipment in those counties whose current BIOS passwords were disclosed by your office are secure and that the chain of custody for that equipment required by Colorado law and regulations is unbroken,” said the letter from Scott Gessler, a Republican attorney with Gessler Blue LLC representing the Trump campaign. Gessler served as secretary of state from 2011 to 2014.
The letter asked that Griswold, a Democrat, confirm by 10 a.m. Thursday that “you will undertake these steps.” Secretary of State officials confirmed they’d received the letter. They didn’t respond immediately to Denver Post questions about whether they’d taken the requested actions.
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State elections officials are investigating how state voting machine passwords ended up online. Griswold has said an employee involved no longer works for the state. On Tuesday, state officials issued a news release saying they’d posted a spreadsheet to their website that “improperly included” partial passwords.
State Republican Party officials first announced the leak, saying they’d found a spreadsheet publicly posted on the secretary of state’s website containing a list of voting systems used around the state with tabs that led to the partial passwords.