{"id":45290,"date":"2021-08-10T12:05:00","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T18:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/serious-breach-of-voting-security-reported-in-mesa-county\/"},"modified":"2021-08-10T18:05:00","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T18:05:00","slug":"serious-breach-of-voting-security-reported-in-mesa-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/serious-breach-of-voting-security-reported-in-mesa-county\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Serious breach\u2019 of voting security reported in Mesa County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Ballots
Ballots at the Durango post office for an election in 2019. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Colorado secretary of state is investigating a potential security breach related to Mesa County\u2019s voting system, Secretary Jena Griswold announced Monday.<\/p>\n

Griswold\u2019s office sent an order to Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters requesting an inspection of \u201celection equipment and other relevant materials,\u201d according to a news release from Griswold.<\/p>\n

The release says the breach did not occur during an election and \u201chas not created an imminent direct security risk to Colorado elections.\u201d However, it described the matter as \u201ca serious breach of voting system security protocols\u201d and a violation of an election rule related to election system user accounts and passwords. Images posted online included Mesa County election system passwords, the release said.<\/p>\n

The Daily Sentinel<\/em><\/a> first reported on the investigation.<\/p>\n

The investigation could result in the decertification of Mesa County\u2019s voting system.<\/p>\n

A Mesa County voting system password was revealed when conspiracy theorist and QAnon maestro Ron Watkins posted images on Telegram from a \u201cwhistleblower,\u201d The Bulwark<\/a> reported, adding that Watkins\u2019 source was someone in Peters\u2019 office. Peters herself has spread discredited claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent.<\/p>\n

The secretary\u2019s order says, \u201cThe posted images depict the BIOS passwords specific to the individual hardware stations of Mesa County\u2019s voting system. These passwords can only be used physically at a voting system at the Mesa County Clerk\u2019s Office.\u201d<\/p>\n

The order says the breach could be a violation of criminal law, and it specifies that \u201cdestruction of documents or evidence related to this incident may constitute a criminal act.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griswold ordered Peters to allow agents from her office to conduct an inspection of Mesa County voting equipment on Tuesday. She also prohibited anyone, including Peters herself, from using or even touching any component of the county\u2019s voting system without Griswold\u2019s written permission.<\/p>\n

Failure to comply with the order, Griswold wrote to Peters, \u201cwill, at a minimum, result in the decertification of Mesa County\u2019s voting systems.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is not the first time Griswold has investigated Peters. Last year, Griswold opened an investigation after the Mesa County clerk failed to count a batch of mail-in ballots in the presidential primary election.<\/p>\n

Republican supporters of former President Donald Trump have persisted in advancing lies about the November election, including about purported vulnerabilities in Dominion Voting Systems, which are used in Mesa County.<\/p>\n

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

Colorado Secretary of State\u2019s Office to investigate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,28,1621],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-45290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-voting"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45290","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=45290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45290"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=45290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}