Colorado’s Corruption Crisis

December Column in Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle

On October 18, 2022, The New York Times shocked themselves when their Siena College poll revealed that 68% of likely US voters answered the same open-ended question the same way:

What do you see as the biggest threat to democracy?

Government Corruption — That the government is not working on behalf of the people.

That was one month before the 2022 midterm elections. I doubt that metric has gone down.

Corruption is a national concern, and Americans are sobering up to the realities of unaccountable governance via public private partnerships. Here in Colorado, this shift in awareness is pronounced.

On October 29, 2024, during early voting, the Colorado GOP revealed the Colorado Department of State (CDoS) published the BIOS passwords for hundreds of pieces of election equipment on their public website.

According to a redacted affidavit, later revealed from Colonel Shawn Smith (USAF, Ret.), from August 8 through October 24, the BIOS passwords were exposed for 600+ individual pieces of election equipment in 63 counties. On October 24, the spreadsheet was removed from the website and replaced with an updated version without the passwords.

The October 24 date is important, because it proves that CDoS knew about the breach but failed to alert the county clerks. The clerks held the potentially exposed devices, and this breach occurred during the voting period.

In November, the Libertarian Party of Colorado unsuccessfully sued CDoS and, during that hearing, it was revealed that the passwords had been up since June 21 — before the 2024 primary — and that there was true security exposure for devices in 34 counties.

But the clerks found out like the rest of us: From the Colorado GOP press release on October 29.

This was a coverup, and following the GOP press release, the crisis communications began immediately. Deputy Secretary Chris Beall (public) and Colorado County Clerks Association Executive Director Matt Crane (private) handled the clerks, while Secretary Jena Griswold (public) shared her story with her pal Kyle Clark (private).

There was never any real threat. They were all acting out of an abundance of caution. There is no security breach.

Again, these contemporaneous assertions were later proved untrue in court and, regardless, at the time Beall, Crane, Griswold, and Clark made these assertions, CDoS could not possibly have known if there was exploitation for a very simple reason: They didn’t tell the Clerks, and the Clerks had the devices.

It was just spin. Narrative. A Story.

They said it anyway. On November 1, just three days after news of the breach hit the public, Griswold claimed victory:

“All of the passwords in affected counties have been changed…every eligible voter should know their ballot will be counted as cast.”

The coverup appears to have been successful for now; but, earlier this month, additional news about Colorado Executive Branch corruption broke.

On December 2, The Gateway Pundit published a bombshell article with newly discovered emails that revealed Mesa County Treasurer Sheila Reiner working with Dominion Voting Systems in 2021. Reiner had a Dominion email address and was coordinating with the election vendor in 2021, without the knowledge or involvement of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.

Open Records don’t cover Dominion email addresses. Hiding communications from open records exposure is an intentional choice.

Reiner was appointed, by CDoS, to run the Mesa County Clerk’s Office after Griswold removed Peters — for what they claimed was a BIOS password leak.

You can’t make this up.

In August 2021, I reported on Reiner inexplicably renewing her elections credentials on August 3 — a week and a half before the Peters story broke — and I speculated about premeditation with CDoS. The sequence of events was a heck of a coincidence if Reiner didn’t have a heads up from Griswold.

Now we know that Reiner was very involved in elections, with a critical election vendor and CDoS, in shadows behind Peters’ back.

How did none of this come up in the reporting? How did it not come up in the local/state/federal investigations into the Peters “breach?” How did it not come up during Peters’ trial?

The simplest answer: Corruption.

You cannot restore public trust without accountability. CDoS is hoping this story fades away; the people must ensure this is just the beginning of this exposure.

The corrupt will never hold themselves accountable.

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This column was originally printed in the Glendale Cherry Creek Chronicle on December 13, 2024.