Colorado Department of State(the agency responsible for protecting voting systems ahead of a presidential election already plagued by allegations of embezzlement and interference) says it’s done some uh-ohing.
For months, the agency “improperly” hosted a publicly available spreadsheet on its website that included a hidden tab with partial passwords for its voting machines.
While the incident is embarrassing and already fueling accusations from the state Republican Party, the department said in a statement that “it does not pose an immediate threat to the security of Colorado elections, nor will it affect the way votes are counted.”
Colorado NBC affiliate station 9NEWS reported that Hope Scheppelman, vice chairwoman of the state Republican Party, revealed the error in a mass email sent Tuesday morning, which included an affidavit from a person who claimed to have downloaded the spreadsheet and discovered the passwords by clicking on a button to reveal hidden tabs.
In its statement, the State Department said there are two unique passwords for each of its voting machines, which are stored in separate locations. Additionally, passwords can only be used by a person who is physically operating the system and voting machines are stored in secure areas that require ID cards to access and are under 24/7 video surveillance .
“The Department took immediate action as soon as it became aware of this and informed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which closely monitors and protects the [country’s] essential security infrastructure,” the department said, adding that it is “working to remedy this situation when necessary.”
Colorado voters use paper ballots, ensuring a physical paper trail that can be used to verify electronically tabulated results.
Despite assurances from the State Department that its voting systems will remain secure and reliable ahead of the election, the Colorado Republican Party quickly seized about the incident to sow doubt about “the many problems with Colorado’s electoral system.”
in a mail From its official dollars so the party could sue Griswold.
The allegations come weeks after a Colorado judge sentenced former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to nine years in prison for using a stolen identification card to illegally obtain voter information, which she shared with Republicans who They falsely claimed that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.