Colorado’s top elections official prohibited Mesa County from using 41 pieces of voting equipment in future elections after sensitive password information associated with the machines was published online.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold ordered the devices to be taken out of commission on Thursday after a preliminary investigation by her office was unable to verify the security of the voting systems.
Griswold, a Democrat, announced her investigation on Monday, ordering Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to provide surveillance video and other documentation to help investigators determine whether the voting devices’ passwords, posted on social media site Telegram on Aug. 2, were exposed due to a breach in security protocol.
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The secretary’s order said it was “clear” the information was “collected during the limited access trusted build installation of the Democracy Suite version 5.13 in Mesa County on May 25, 2021.” Democracy Suite is used in Dominion Voting Systems machines.
The order Griswold issued Thursday decommissioning the equipment revealed multiple findings, including that Mesa County allowed a nonemployee to attend the voting system security installation and misrepresented to state elections officials that the individual was an employee.
Video surveillance of the voting systems was also turned off before May 25 and not turned back on until August, according to Griswold’s order, which prevented investigators from using footage to confirm the equipment’s chain of custody. The order also implicated Peters, saying the evidence suggests her office directed surveillance cameras to be turned off.
The totality of circumstances led to Griswold’s prohibiting future use of the equipment, her order said.
“The department finds that it cannot establish a verifiable chain of custody for any of the voting systems components in Mesa County and cannot establish confidence in the integrity or security of these components,” the order read.
Griswold’s order did not speculate about what might have led Peters, who has publicly bolstered election fraud theories by asserting that it is simple to over-tabulate votes in favor of a given candidate fraudulently, or her office to disengage surveillance equipment.
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Griswold did say Thursday that Mesa County must pay to replace the now-prohibited election equipment, which must be certified by Aug. 30, or else officials will have to count ballots by hand in the next election.
The Washington Examiner contacted Peters for comment on Griswold’s order.
