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The SOS error is no comparison to Peters’ scheme | Editorials

Posted on by L. Dreeye
The SOS error is no comparison to Peters’ scheme | Editorials

Calls for Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to resign over the mistaken posting of a document containing sensitive election-related information on the agency’s website are premature.

However, it is important for society to understand how and why this happened. From an election security perspective, inadvertently revealing passwords is pointless due to the multiple layers of security within the system. But since the elections honesty From this point of view, this is a painful blow because it undermines faith in the system.

Former Mesa County Clerk and Clerk Tina Peters just received a nine-year prison sentence for criminal acts that undermined the integrity of elections. What Peters did was vile. The latest incident appears to have been due to negligence.

But for the Colorado Republican Party, that distinction doesn’t matter. Party leaders want the public to view the mistake not only as an unacceptable double standard, but also as evidence that Colorado elections are not as secure as Democrats make them out to be.

“We continually hear in Colorado from Secretary of State Griswold and Gov. (Jared) Polis that we represent the gold standard for election integrity, a model for the nation,” Dave Williams, chairman of the Colorado Republican Party, said in a statement. “One can only hope that the Secretary of State will publish our most sensitive passwords online for the world to see and dispel this myth.”

Griswold said the leak “does not pose an immediate threat to the security of Colorado’s elections,” a point local Republican county officials have emphasized.

But she did not acknowledge the leak until the state Republican Party released an initial statement detailing the presence of a spreadsheet posted on the secretary of state’s website containing basic input-output system — or BIOS — passwords for voting systems across the state. Because of this, the state Republican Party is calling the incident a scandal and a cover-up.

“Unfortunately, we had a government employee download a spreadsheet with some voting equipment passwords,” Griswold told 9News anchor Kyle Clark on Tuesday.

Mesa County Clerk Bobbi Gross told the Sentinel’s Charles Ashby that BIOS passwords are one of two passwords required to gain full access to election equipment, and anyone attempting to do so would have to be on site, meaning no the ability to access them remotely. Gaining personal access would require someone to bypass other security measures, including special access key cards to secure premises where CCTV cameras are always on.

Montrose County Clerk Tressa Guynes said, “Only four election officials have access to the Montrose County election system. All four have undergone extensive background checks, extensive training, and are under 24-hour video surveillance with motion and sound detectors.”

Griswold characterized the leak as an honest mistake. But this is not a “no harm, no violation” situation. This has opened the door to questions about election security at a time when we need it least.

If there’s more to this incident, the state GOP seems determined to uncover it. Party officials say they will seek “legal redress in court” if they do not receive a satisfactory answer about why the information was leaked. An attempt is also being made to convene a Legislative Audit Commission to investigate the incident.

Perhaps there is something that will justify calls for Griswold’s resignation. She must know that her competence is in question. She would be wise to keep this incident quiet, acknowledge that it is a stain on the integrity of the election, and offer assurances that it will not happen again. So far, she has failed to accept a level of personal responsibility that inspires confidence.