Colorado Libertarians sue Secretary of State Jena Griswold over leak of voting equipment passwords | Elections | coloradopolitics.com

Nov 05, 2024

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold speaks in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Feb. 8, 2024, in Washington in this file photo.

The Colorado Libertarian Party sued Secretary of State Jena Griswold and her chief deputy on Friday in Denver, asking the court to decommission voting equipment and order a hand count of ballots in counties affected by the recently discovered online disclosure of hundreds of election equipment passwords.

Hannah Goodman, the minor party's state chair, and James Wiley, the Libertarian nominee in the 3rd Congressional District, argue in a lawsuit filed in Denver District Court that Griswold and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Beall breached their public duties with the leak and their responses to it.

Earlier the same day, Griswold and Gov. Jared Polis announced that all of the leaked passwords had been updated by Thursday evening and that state personnel had verified the affected voting machines are secure.

The two officials, both Democrats, reiterated in a statement that the appearance of the voting equipment passwords in a spreadsheet posted online "did not pose a security threat to Colorado's elections" and won't affect how ballots cast in next week's election are counted.

“Colorado has countless layers of security to ensure our elections are free and fair, and every eligible voter should know their ballot will be counted as cast," Griswold said.

A spokeswoman for the Department of State told Colorado Politics on Friday afternoon that the department was aware of the lawsuit but had no comment on pending litigation.

The case was assigned late Friday to Denver District Court Judge Kandace C. Gerdes, with a hearing set for Monday afternoon.

Wiley, who also serves as the state Libertarian Party's executive director, said the party doesn't believe Griswold and her department acted quickly enough to remedy the security breach.

"The delay in response, especially after the matter became public, raises significant concerns about the commitment to election security," Wiley said in a statement.

"We are compelled to take this legal route to ensure that such lapses in security are not only corrected but are prevented in the future," he added. "Voter confidence is at stake, and it is our duty to safeguard the trust in our electoral systems."

The Libertarians' lawsuit also asks the court to order that Griswold and Beall be recused from overseeing next week's election and that the Colorado Attorney General's Office investigate the password leak. In addition, the lawsuit asks the court to void an emergency rule issued by Beall that authorized additional state employees to help update passwords.

Polis said on Thursday that he would detail state staff with sufficient expertise and clearance to assist Griswold's office in updating the passwords and reviewing security logs in county clerks' offices across the state. Polis and Griswold said Friday that 22 state cybersecurity personnel had assisted eight Department of State employees in the effort.

By themselves, the leaked passwords aren't enough to access or alter the state's voting equipment, Griswold said earlier this week after the Colorado Republican Party publicized the existence of the spreadsheet on the Secretary of State's website.

The GOP issued a release days after Griswold's staff replaced the spreadsheet on Oct. 24 with a file that didn't include the passwords.

Every piece of election equipment in use by Colorado counties requires two passwords — one held by the Secretary of State's Office and the other known only to personnel in each county clerk's office — and is required by law to be stored in secure rooms under constant video surveillance, a spokesman for Griswold said.

Griswold said in an interview with 9News that a "civil servant" who no longer works at the department was responsible for uploading a file that "improperly included" voting system passwords in a hidden worksheet in an inventory of election equipment.

Griswold earlier acknowledged that the spreadsheet had been posted online for months to the Colorado Secretary of State's Office website and that a hidden worksheet on the document could display passwords to some components of the state's election system.

Gov. Jared Polis and Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Friday said voting machine passwords, which were posted online, have been updated and the security of the equipment has been verified.