{"id":63898,"date":"2018-07-29T16:00:30","date_gmt":"2018-07-29T22:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/secretary-of-state-challenger-focuses-on-voting-rights\/"},"modified":"2018-07-29T22:00:30","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T22:00:30","slug":"secretary-of-state-challenger-focuses-on-voting-rights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/secretary-of-state-challenger-focuses-on-voting-rights\/","title":{"rendered":"Secretary of state challenger focuses on voting rights"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Griswold\"
Griswold<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The position of secretary of state isn\u2019t typically a politically charged office, but it\u2019s looking like the race has been caught in the crosshairs of this year\u2019s November midterm elections.<\/p>\n

Democratic challenger Jena Griswold, who visited Durango on Friday, hopes to unseat incumbent Wayne Williams, a Republican, to become the first Democrat secretary of state in nearly six decades.<\/p>\n

The secretary assumes many duties, such as registering businesses, lobbyists and charities. But the biggest responsibility is leading Colorado\u2019s elections.<\/p>\n

Griswold, an attorney who lives in Louisville, said while the position\u2019s focus is on the state of Colorado, it is not immune to the pressures of national politics and the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Specifically, throughout her campaign, Griswold has criticized Williams\u2019 decision last summer to send Colorado\u2019s voter data to Trump\u2019s now-disbanded voter-fraud commission, which was tied to the president\u2019s allegations of widespread fraud in the 2016 election.<\/p>\n

As a result, thousands of Colorado voters withdrew their registration, with estimates ranging from 3,000 to 8,000 voters. Though Colorado did send voter data to the commission, it did not include confidential information, despite the White House\u2019s request to do so.<\/p>\n

Williams has defended his decision, saying the information that was sent was already public. And although he complied with Trump\u2019s request, Williams has disagreed with the president\u2019s assertion there were millions of instances of voter fraud.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe (Williams) did not provide anything that was not publicly available to anyone who made such a request,\u201d said Ryan Lynch, a consultant for Williams\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n

Griswold, however, saw the act as a threat to Colorado voters\u2019 security and denounced Williams for buckling to Trump\u2019s request, which she called unlawful.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to be very careful with voting rights,\u201d Griswold said. \u201cHe (Williams) took a different approach and sent the data, and thousands of people withdrew their voter registration.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is Griswold\u2019s first foray into election politics.<\/p>\n

The Estes Park native has worked as a voting rights attorney for former President Barack Obama\u2019s campaign and as a Washington, D.C., liaison for Gov. John Hickenlooper.<\/p>\n

Griswold, 33, said if elected, she wants to make sure the state has the \u201cmost secure and accessible elections in the nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among other goals Griswold has her sights on, she wants to expand programs to get more people signed up to vote, such as automatic voter registration; tighten regulations on campaign finance disclosures; and proactively enforce erroneous filings.<\/p>\n

She would also like the secretary of state\u2019s office to offer a small-business and entrepreneur center where people starting a company can get all the paperwork and information they need in one place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the secretary of state needs to be more proactive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Williams, 55, was first elected in 2014. He had previously served as El Paso County\u2019s clerk and recorder, and before that, as a county commissioner.<\/p>\n

Under his tenure during the 2016 presidential election, Colorado\u2019s voter data was not compromised when Russian hackers went after 21 states, Colorado included. Breaches were reported in only two states, Arizona and Illinois.<\/p>\n

Williams is credited with getting more residents signed up to vote after implementing automatic voter registration when people receive or renew a driver\u2019s license.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe secretary\u2019s job is to run fair elections, and work with the county clerks to provide them the necessary resources and information they need,\u201d Lynch said. \u201cIf Jena wants to hyper-politicize this position, she can, but the reality is that Secretary Williams has run a high-functioning office that upholds the law and provides innovative public services to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griswold, however, hopes that with the majority of Colorado voters now marginally more Democrat, the polls will tip in her favor.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople who work at the (office) are really good, but I do get concerned about some of the decision making at the very top,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen things come from the outside affecting us, of course, we have to pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Griswold criticizes incumbent for compromising voter data, cooperating with President Trump<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":63899,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29,265,315,1509],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-63898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-politics","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-state-elections"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63898","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=63898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63898\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63899"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63898"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=63898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}