Colorado election officials reject Trump’s claims | News

Secretary of State Jena Griswold spoke to reporters following former President Donald Trump’s speech at the Gaylord Rockies Resort in Aurora on Friday.

“Our elections today are the safest, most secure and most accessible in the country,” Griswold said. Trump traveled to Colorado to promote racist conspiracies “and to lie, lie, lie, lie,” she said.

“The lies he told today were intended to divide us and turn us against our neighbors. He denigrated the amazing and vibrant community of Aurora to send a hateful message against immigrants. Coloradans should reject his xenophobic and unfounded claims The truth is that we are stronger together The diversity of Aurora and the entire state of Colorado is one of the things that truly makes us great. and not ridiculed or scorned.

Griswold said she thought Trump had lost his train of thought, but one thing was constant: spreading lies and conspiracy theories to undermine faith in democracy.

She pointed out that Trump has threatened to sue election officials “fanning the flames of intimidation and threats against officials” who she says help keep elections running smoothly. She also noted that the former president had said he would not accept the results of the 2024 election if he did not win.

During his Friday speech in Aurora, Trump said nothing about the election results and process, focusing almost entirely on immigration problems that he said were caused by the Biden/Harris administration. In part of his speech, Trump pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Colorado’s effort to exclude it from the 2024 ballot by a 9-0 decision.

Regarding Colorado’s elections, Griswold said the mail-in voting system is secure. Mail-in ballots work because they allow voters to take their time, research candidates and issues, and make decisions. And they’re made of paper, which means they can’t be hacked, she added. Ballots began being mailed to voters on Friday.

The state has several layers of security in its election system, including signature verification by bipartisan election judges and daily updating of voter rolls. She also emphasized that non-citizens cannot vote.

“It’s thanks to innovations like mail-in voting” that make Colorado’s elections the national benchmark for access and security, she added.

“Colorado’s elections are run by Coloradans, our friends and neighbors united behind the common goal of ensuring our democracy works.” This includes a strict chain of custody of ballots and election materials.

“The 2020 election was not stolen from Trump. Trump was fired by the American people. He lost. Colorado will have a good election this election cycle, and I look forward to today’s polls and next week,” she concluded.

Griswold addressed issues that emerged after the 2020 elections in Mesa and Elbert counties, where she replaced county clerks for the 2022 elections after they admitted to illegally copying voting systems’ hard drives . Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was sentenced last week to nine years in prison for her role in the incident, which resulted in copies of her county’s election system falling into the hands of election conspiracy theorists. Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder has voluntarily returned illegal copies of his county’s election system hard drives.

Griswold also had to appoint others to oversee elections in four other counties in 2022, including Pueblo County, after the clerk and recorder made multiple errors during the primary and general ballots.

These three counties all have new county clerks and recorders.

Griswold thinks turnout will be good this year, noting that the state had the second-highest turnout in the country during the last presidential election in 2020. His job is to monitor the variables leading to turnout, including access and security.

She said her office has allocated millions of dollars in grants to increase access or security, and that the number of drop boxes and voting centers has increased over the past six years. She added that she has increased her support to counties and will travel across the state to help when needed.

“We have increased our security and increased our access consistently,” she said.

Dolores County has already experienced problems in 2024, where hundreds of voters never got their primary ballots due to ballots being lost somewhere between Seattle and Albuquerque while under the U.S. Postal Service custody.

“We have reached out to the United States Postal Service to try to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Griswold said. The problem was that the late delivery wasn’t reported quickly enough for his office to intervene.

Apparently the Dolores County Clerk did not notify her office. “We will not hesitate to add resources if necessary,” she said. “We want all of our counties to succeed, every county clerk to succeed, and we will be there to make sure the 2024 election is as successful as any other year.”

For this election, Griswold said his office also hired former county clerks to step in if necessary.

She also discussed potential voter intimidation, such as in 2020 when two men dressed in military fatigues filmed people casting ballots in Arapahoe County. “We are concerned about anything that could prevent a Coloradan from voting,” she said.

State law has since been changed to make it a misdemeanor to carry a weapon near a drop box or voting center. “We are monitoring the entire situation. And if any cases of voter intimidation are reported, we will act very quickly.”