Did Wingnut Colorado Clerk Leak Election Codes To Goddamn Gateway Pundit, Or Wuz She Fraaaamed

Allegedly.

A county election official in Colorado is under investigation for her possible role in leaking voting machine passwords that were posted in a video at the Gateway Pundit , because that's where all the most credible voting security news gets reported. Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said yesterday that election equipment in rural Mesa County would have to be replaced, because her staff had inspected the voting machines and other equipment earlier this week, but couldn't

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 those components.

Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters is a big fan of the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and was actually not in the office when the team from the secretary of state's office showed up with a warrant. As any responsible officeholder would be, Peters had skedaddled off to South Dakota to attend MyPillow guy Mike Lindell's dumb fraud picnic. Peters took the opportunity to claim that Griswold, a Democrat, was a tyrant bent on taking over Mesa County, Colorado's last bastion of conservatism, and that the secretary of state had "invaded" her office — after getting a search warrant, as invaders usually do.

So this appears to be the big news from Mike Lindell's cyber symposium. They are saying Jena Griswold, the Colorado… https: //t.co/CjmRJpYIeg

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@PatriotTakes 🇺🇸) 1628642984.0 

Peters also explained to the crowd at Pillowpalooza that she's been "persecuted," and says that if anybody leaked the login information for her county's election equipment to the stupidest rightwing conspiracy theory blog on the internet, it was probably the Democratic secretary of state, which is just logical, because "These just happen to be passwords that only the secretary of state has," you see.

The Associated Press weirdly framed the accusations against Peters as part of a "feud" between Griswold and Peters, we guess because when a lady prosecutor investigates a possible crime committed by a different elected lady, surely there's a catfight in the offing.

 At a presser yesterday , Griswold told reporters this looked like a true crime Peters-dunnit:

I think this is troubling for the entire state of Colorado, to have someone in a trusted position, literally trusted to protect democracy, allow this type of situation to occur. [...] To be very clear, Mesa County Clerk and Recorder allowed a security breach and, by all evidence at this point, assisted it.

The secretary of state's office began investigating the Mesa County Clerk and Recorder's office on Monday, when staff members first discovered a video online showing login credentials for voting machines.

Griswold also confirmed that the 21st Judicial District Attorney in Mesa County, Dan Rubinstein, has opened a criminal investigation into the leak.

Griswold seems to have this crazy idea that the leak was related to a May 25 meeting attended by someone who was not a county employee, who was allowed to see the voting machine login information. Griswold says her investigators had been misled to believe that person was a county employee.

CNN explains,

A source briefed on the investigation described the "trusted build" as a routine meeting between county and state officials in a secure setting to update voting machine software. Only the clerk, her office's employees, Dominion Voting Systems staff and representatives from the secretary of state's office were allowed to attend. [...]

Griswold's order states that video footage from surveillance cameras inside the clerk's office, which should have showed the "trusted build" meeting, was missing.

"The evidence suggests that the Mesa County Clerk's office directed Mesa County staff to turn off video surveillance of the voting equipment prior to the May 25, 2021 trusted build," the order states. "The video surveillance cameras were not turned back on until August, which is inconsistent with the Department's understanding of the normal course of business practice in Mesa County."

Further, security seals that were supposed to be put on the voting machines at the meeting were only put in place several days later. Also too, video equipment that's supposed to monitor the county's voting equipment 24/7 appears to have been turned off before that May meeting and only switched on again in August. 

Boy, this whole thing stinks to high heaven! It's hard to believe Colorado's secretary of state would do all that just to make it look like a Republican county clerk had done it herself.

[ Associated Press/NBC News / CNN / NPR ]

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