{"id":45257,"date":"2021-08-11T12:10:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-11T18:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-secretary-of-state-blames-mesa-county-clerk-for-password-breach\/"},"modified":"2021-08-11T18:10:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-11T18:10:00","slug":"colorados-secretary-of-state-blames-mesa-county-clerk-for-password-breach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorados-secretary-of-state-blames-mesa-county-clerk-for-password-breach\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s secretary of state blames Mesa County clerk for password breach"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"An
An effort by Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters to create a drive-up ballot box created issues after ballots were found blowing across the parking lot at the Mesa County Central Services building. In an unrelated issue, Peters is being blamed by the Colorado secretary of state for allowing election system passwords to be released. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to the Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold put blame for the release of election system passwords last week on the internet squarely on Mesa County officials, saying the breach could have allowed someone to access the settings of the county\u2019s voting equipment, all of which may now have to be decertified.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say at this time that Mesa County appears to have allowed this breach in election security,\u201d Griswold, a Democrat, told The Colorado Sun during an interview Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Griswold\u2019s office is investigating the situation. It believes that images containing the passwords that were posted online were taken during a so-called \u201ctrusted build\u201d systems update to election equipment completed in late May. The Mesa County District Attorney\u2019s office has launched a parallel criminal probe into the leak.<\/p>\n

At the center of the case is Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, a Republican who as the investigation into her office heated up on Tuesday appeared at a \u201ccyber symposium\u201d hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, who continued to make unsubstantiated claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n

(There has been no evidence of widespread fraud that would have changed the outcome of the election on the state or national level.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI am being persecuted,\u201d Peters said Tuesday night during the conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where she accused Griswold of \u201craiding\u201d her office.<\/p>\n

Peters also made baseless accusations that Griswold and Gov. Jared Polis are trying to \u201ctake over my office and control the way we vote.\u201d<\/p>\n

The leaked passwords are specific to Mesa County. State officials don\u2019t believe that any other counties were affected by the breach. Since the breach didn\u2019t happen during an election, state officials are also confident it didn\u2019t and won\u2019t affect any past or upcoming contests.<\/p>\n

The trusted build update from which authorities believe the passwords were leaked is similar to an update that someone would run on their smartphone or computer. But because it has to do with election equipment, there are strict security protocols.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s Office sends a representative to each county to run the update with representatives from the voting equipment vendor. County representatives are allowed to observe.<\/p>\n

A person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because they aren\u2019t allowed to discuss details of an ongoing investigation said Mesa County had three representatives at the trusted build update.<\/p>\n

Griswold said she is confident the leak didn\u2019t come from her office, which is why she believes Mesa County is to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I can say is we do not believe it was someone in my office,\u201d Griswold said. \u201cAnd we have many reasons behind that.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Peters was responsible for conducting background checks on the representatives she brought to the update. \u201cThat is a requirement under the election rules,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The passwords were posted on a far-right blog and shared, Griswold said, on social media by a man linked to the QAnon conspiracy.<\/p>\n

Griswold said Peters is not cooperating with the investigation. \u201cPeters has not answered any orders or calls from our office,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The breach is also under criminal investigation by prosecutors on the Western Slope.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can confirm that we have received information that there may be criminal acts related to the SoS investigation and I have assigned an investigator to look into it,\u201d Dan Rubinstein, the Mesa County district attorney, told The Colorado Sun in an email. \u201cWe are conducting an independent, but parallel investigation to that of the SoS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rubinstein said he couldn\u2019t comment on who was under investigation because the probe is ongoing.<\/p>\n

The Colorado County Clerk\u2019s Association issued a statement late Monday supporting Griswold\u2019s investigation. \u201cWe take any credible information that questions the integrity of the conduct of our elections seriously,\u201d said Matt Crane, executive director of the group. \u201cWe offer our full support to this inquiry and hope that a thorough investigation will provide clear answers to the concerns raised by the Secretary of State\u2019s office.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s Office could decide to decertify all of the election equipment in Mesa County as a result of the leak. That would give local election officials just a few weeks to procure new equipment ahead of the Nov. 2 election, which includes school board and municipal contests and may include statewide ballot initiatives. If they are unable to get the new equipment in time, the county may have to hand count ballots.<\/p>\n

Peters, a Republican whose term has been marked by controversy, did not return a phone call and text message from The Colorado Sun on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\"Mesa
Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters was elected to the position in 2018. (Gretel Daugherty, Special to the Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Mesa County Clerk and Recorder\u2019s Office came under fire in February 2020 after nearly 600 uncounted ballots from the 2019 election were discovered in a drop box outside the county\u2019s election office. The votes would not have changed the results of any of the 2019 elections, Peters said at the time, but Griswold called the situation \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peters, who was elected in 2018, was then the target of an unsuccessful recall effort last year.<\/p>\n

After the 2020 election, Peters posted voter fraud claims on social media without evidence. On Tuesday night, Peters lambasted Crane, a Republican, for urging her not to spread the baseless voter fraud claims.<\/p>\n

There has been no evidence of widespread fraud that would have overturned the results of the 2020 presidential election. A risk-limiting audit in Colorado, completed after the 2020 election, confirmed the contest\u2019s results.<\/p>\n

Peters, who was joined at the MyPillow Guy\u2019s conference by Sheronna Bishop, one of U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert\u2019s 2020 campaign managers, insinuated on Tuesday night that Griswold is responsible for the leaked passwords.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese just happen to be passwords that only the secretary of state has,\u201d Peters said. \u201cAs a matter of fact, when they were in doing this trusted build in my office, they told me that I\u2019m not allowed to have those passwords.\u201d<\/p>\n

(The Secretary of State\u2019s Office is the only place the passwords are stored. This provides an added level of security to ensure that when election infrastructure is updated no one can tamper with the software.)<\/p>\n

Peters then questioned why the Secretary of State\u2019s Office \u201chas passwords that I can\u2019t have to get into the back door of my system.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you think?\u201d Peters asked. \u201cThat\u2019s a question that we need answers to. And we\u2019re going to find it.\u201d<\/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":"

denies responsibility, says if anything Jena Griswold\u2019s office is to blame<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":45258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,266,28,1722,1509,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-election","tag-headlines","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\/45257","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=45257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45257\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45257"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}