Democratic officials in Colorado are facing backlash after voting machine passwords were leaked to the public.
Top election official Jena Griswold, a Democrat, confirmed that the passwords were online for four months before the state discovered the issue in October.
The Libertarian Party of Colorado has filed a lawsuit to decommission the voting machines that were potentially compromised, and the Trump campaign issued a call last week to pause ballot processing.
The passwords were publicly available from June until late October, when a vendor flagged the breach to state officials. A former employee who left "amicably" had shared the passwords on Griswold's website in a hidden tab.
Adding to public concern, Griswold kept the breach hidden from the public for five days after it was discovered on October 24. Griswold also kept county clerks in the dark about the issue.
The public didn't find out about the problem until the state's Republicans raised the alarm last week.
Despite the serious breach, Griswold has refused to resign. Both Griswold and Democratic governor Jared Polis (D) have asserted Colorado's elections are secure.
Griswold trotted out an excuse Monday for hiding the breach from voters, saying she was reluctant to fuel "disinformation" about the election.
"Making this public without understanding the size and scope of the disclosure, and without having a concrete plan for determining our technical and outreach strategy, would run contrary to cybersecurity best practices and carried a significant risk of fueling the major disinformation environment that surrounds elections today," Griswold said in the statement.
Griswold supported the failed effort to remove President Trump from the ballot in Colorado, which was overturned by the Supreme Court this year.
Last month, Griswold celebrated the 9 year sentence for Tina Peters, the pro-Trump former Mesa County Clerk convicted of breaching election equipment in 2021.
"We will not allow anyone to threaten our elections... Colorado’s elections are the nation’s gold standard," Griswold said at the time
"I am proud of how we have responded to the first insider elections breach in the nation, and look forward to another secure and successful election in November.”
The left can't guarantee basic election security, but they demand blind trust in the process anyway. And they have the audacity to lecture us about "democracy?"
