{"id":38697,"date":"2022-08-26T15:34:18","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T21:34:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-county-clerks-report-uptick-in-2020-election-records-requests\/"},"modified":"2022-08-26T21:34:18","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T21:34:18","slug":"colorado-county-clerks-report-uptick-in-2020-election-records-requests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-county-clerks-report-uptick-in-2020-election-records-requests\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado county clerks report uptick in 2020 election records requests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Mike
Mike Lindell addresses a crowd gathered on the steps of the state Capitol for an event called the \u201cColorado Election Truth Rally,\u201d which was organized by individuals who question the results of the 2020 presidential election, in Denver on April 5. (Kevin Mohatt for Colorado Newsline)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

County clerks\u2019 offices across Colorado saw an influx of Colorado Open Records Act requests for cast vote records from the 2020 election after Mike Lindell, the MyPillow CEO, hosted the \u201cMoment of Truth Summit\u201d in Springfield, Missouri, last weekend.<\/p>\n

In a call to action at the summit, which was livestreamed, Lindell said \u201cevery single person in the country\u201d should go to their local county clerk\u2019s office to ask for cast vote records from the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

He provided a form on his website for people to submit asking for the specific information. Lindell falsely claims the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and is one of the country\u2019s leading \u201cbig lie\u201d proponents.<\/p>\n

Cast vote records are electronic records that show how every individual voted in an election. Kristi Ridlen, spokesperson for El Paso County\u2019s Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office, said they essentially show how election management software reads the ballots cast.<\/p>\n

Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said the influx in requests is a direct result of Lindell\u2019s call to action. Crane said the coordinated requests are a \u201cdenial of service\u201d attack to keep county clerks from tending to the duties they were elected to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have nothing to hide,\u201d Crane said. \u201cThere\u2019s no honor to what these people are doing, there\u2019s no integrity to it. It\u2019s just helping them continue their grift.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crane attended the annual conference for the Election Center, a national association of election officials, in Denver this week, and he said the records requests was a hot topic among attendees from around the country. He said everyone who works in this space supports citizens\u2019 rights to petition their government for information, but these requests have no basis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s overwhelming,\u201d Crane said. \u201cI\u2019ve heard from people in other states, other jurisdictions where they\u2019re actually having to hire people now just to handle these open records requests.\u201d<\/p>\n

After seeing so many requests for the same information, some clerks\u2019 offices made their 2020 cast vote records publicly available on their websites. A spokesperson from the Denver Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office said the office received nine requests for the records as of Thursday morning.<\/p>\n

Spokesperson Lucille Wenegieme said the clerk\u2019s office has been tracking trends of CORA requests and applied redactions so the office could make the cast vote records public, which it has since completed.<\/p>\n

In El Paso County, Ridlen said the Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office has received about 15 requests for cast vote records this week. But Ridlen said it isn\u2019t information one needs to file a CORA request for in El Paso County, because it\u2019s been publicly available on the clerk\u2019s website<\/a> since 2020.<\/p>\n

She said every request was essentially copy and pasted with identical wording.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody told them to go and request this and that\u2019s exactly what they did, word for word verbatim of the request,\u201d Ridlen said. \u201cWe were kind of anticipating a higher increase. I have noticed a trend when there\u2019s been either a summit or a podcast or whatever the case may be over the last couple of years, people will say, \u2018You need to CORA this from your county clerk and recorder.\u2019 We do see an uptick in those responses.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ridlen said the increase in these requests started not long after the 2020 election. The same goes for Weld County, where Clerk and Recorder Carly Koppes said she\u2019s seen about 10 or more requests for 2020 cast vote records this week. Koppes said she also expects a new influx of requests whenever an event like Lindell\u2019s summit occurs, and that it\u2019s been happening \u201cpretty regularly across the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t know what they\u2019re asking for<\/div>\n

Weld County doesn\u2019t have the actual cast vote record spreadsheet immediately available on its website, but it does have a tool available where people can see ballot images and audit marks, which Koppes said is essentially the same as the cast vote record.<\/p>\n

In response to the CORA requests, Koppes said she explains how requesters can view the information on the website and also includes the spreadsheet of the actual cast vote record.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of requests for our cast vote records because apparently these people were provided with incorrect information stating that we will delete our cast vote records come Sept. 3,\u201d Koppes said. \u201cThey don\u2019t understand that the cast vote record is a report, and here in Weld County we keep that for historical reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Koppes said she thinks the Sept. 3 date of concern likely comes from the federal 22-month retainment requirement for election materials, as the date marks 22 months since the November 2020 election. But, Colorado has a 25-month retainment requirement, so even if her office planned to dispose of election materials, they couldn\u2019t until Dec. 3.<\/p>\n

Election materials that fall under the Colorado requirement include everything that would be needed to recreate the entire election if necessary, including the physical paper ballots, return envelopes, risk-limiting audits and more. Koppes said it\u2019s black-and-white in Colorado statutes what is required to be retained.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just unfortunate that they have been given bad information again,\u201d Koppes said. \u201cThese people who are instructing them to do these CORA requests clearly don\u2019t have enough knowledge to know that in Colorado, we actually are required to keep things for 25 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crane said Lindell could easily submit records requests to all 64 counties in Colorado himself but that he won\u2019t, because he wants to drive \u201cgood and decent citizens\u201d to \u201cdo their dirty work for them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crane said he\u2019s heard from other clerks that those making the requests frequently don\u2019t know what they\u2019re asking for or why \u2013 just that they were told they were supposed to ask for it.<\/p>\n

Claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent or compromised have been debunked by experts<\/a>, courts <\/a>and former President Donald Trump\u2019s own campaign of<\/a>ficials.<\/p>\n

To read more stories from Colorado Newsline, visit www.coloradonewsline.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Moment of Truth Summit\u2019 attendees encouraged by Mike Lindell to ask for cast vote records<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38698,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[266,28,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-election","tag-headlines","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38697"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}