The department also cited “strict chain of custody requirements that track when a voting systems component has been accessed and by whom,” and it said that every “Colorado voter votes on a paper ballot, which is then audited in the course of the Risk Limiting Audit to confirm that ballots were counted based on voter intent.”
Goal is to vary all passwords by this evening
Griswold described the upload as an accident and said the error was made by a civil servant who now not works for the department. “Out of an abundance of caution, now we have people in the sphere working to reset passwords and review access logs for affected counties,” she said.
Gov. Jared Polis and Griswold, who’re each Democrats, issued a joint update concerning the password changes today. The Polis administration is providing support “to finish changes to all of the impacted passwords and review logs to be certain that no tampering occurred.”
“The Secretary of State will deputize certain state employees, who’ve cybersecurity and technology expertise and have undergone appropriate background checks and training,” the statement said. “Along with the Department of State Employees and in coordination with county clerks, these employees will only enter badged areas in pairs to update the passwords for election equipment in counties and shall be directly observed by local elections officials from the county clerk’s office. The goal is to finish the password updates by this evening and confirm the safety of the voting components, that are secured behind locked doors by county clerks.”
Griswold said she is “thankful to the Governor for his support to quickly resolve this unlucky mistake.” Griswold told Colorado Public Radio that her department has no reason to consider the passwords were posted with malicious intent, but said that “a personnel investigation shall be conducted by an out of doors party to look into the particulars of how this occurred.”
