{"id":45168,"date":"2021-08-17T02:34:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T08:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-secretary-of-state-wont-allow-mesa-countys-clerk-to-oversee-upcoming-election\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:23:45","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:23:45","slug":"colorado-secretary-of-state-wont-allow-mesa-countys-clerk-to-oversee-upcoming-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-secretary-of-state-wont-allow-mesa-countys-clerk-to-oversee-upcoming-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado secretary of state won\u2019t allow Mesa County\u2019s clerk to oversee upcoming election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Colorado
Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, left, and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters.<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold decided Monday that Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters cannot be trusted to oversee the election in November and is working to find a replacement.<\/p>\n

Griswold, a Democrat, doesn\u2019t have the ability to remove Peters, a Republican, from office. But she can bar any county clerk from overseeing an election if she feels they cannot carry out their duties.<\/p>\n

The decision, which is expected to be formalized in the coming days, comes as Peters is under investigation for her involvement in the leak of images containing Mesa County elections system passwords. The Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s Office also said Monday that copies of Mesa County election equipment hard drives were publicly posted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile the investigation is ongoing, it appears these hard drive images contain copies of the election management software that runs voting system equipment in Mesa County,\u201d the office said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The release of the pictures containing passwords is under criminal investigation by Mesa County prosecutors. Last week, Griswold ordered Mesa County to scrap and replace its election equipment because her office couldn\u2019t verify that the system hadn\u2019t been tampered with.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe the images containing the passwords were taken during a May 25 software update of Dominion Voting Systems equipment and then posted online. The Secretary of State\u2019s Office believes Gerald Wood took the photographs and was allowed to attend the software update \u2013 called a \u201ctrusted build\u201d \u2013 even though he wasn\u2019t authorized to be there.<\/p>\n

Griswold said Peters\u2019 office told the Secretary of State\u2019s Office that Wood worked at the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office, which isn\u2019t true. For security reasons, only employees of the office are allowed to attend the update.<\/p>\n

Investigators believe hard drive images were taken on May 23.<\/p>\n

\u201cNew information acquired during the Department of State\u2019s investigation reveals that the secure room where this election equipment is stored was accessed on the evening of Sunday, May 23, outside of normal work hours by the Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters; Gerald Wood, the unauthorized individual who attended the Mesa County trusted build; and another Mesa County Clerk and Recorder employee,\u201d the release said.<\/p>\n

Peters has said that she is being persecuted. She hasn\u2019t returned multiple messages from The Colorado Sun seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Last week, Peters attended a conference in South Dakota held by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, an ally of President Donald Trump who has made baseless claims about last year\u2019s presidential election being fraudulent. Images from the Mesa County breach were discussed during the conference as evidence of malfeasance in the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

Peters has also spread unfounded claims of fraud and malfeasance during last year\u2019s presidential contest.<\/p>\n

Despite the leaked passwords and hard drive copies, Griswold and other Colorado elections experts do not believe the state\u2019s voting systems are compromised.<\/p>\n

The leaked passwords were specific to Mesa County and the U.S. Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency, housed within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, reviewed the leaked hard drive copies and determined they do not present a risk.<\/p>\n

Mesa County must pay for new voting equipment before the Nov. 2 election.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Decision comes as Tina Peters is under investigation for involvement in leak of passwords<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,168,28,29,1722,1509,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-regional-elections","tag-state-elections","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45168","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=45168"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86380,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45168\/revisions\/86380"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45168"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}