Colorado clerks voice alarm at murky ‘official’ push to access voting machines | Colorado

Colorado, El Paso County’deki Republican Clerk Steve Schleiker, on July 16, an emergency desire to recognize a number of short messages returned home from work.

The person sent the message to Schleiker, the political adviser of 76 groups who previously served as the Chief of General Staff of the representative Lauren Boebert. He said that he worked with the White House and that he was looking for a Republican clerk in democratic states that they could be a partner in election integrity. Sm Malli wanted to talk soon, Schleiker said, because the next morning there will be a meeting between the Ministry of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Ministry of Justice.

Schleiker spoke with Small that evening and said that Small had tied him to a follow -up with an official at DHS. The authority asked whether Schleiker would be willing to allow the federal government to access the district’s election equipment and to see if there was any gap in the district’s network.

Schleicer was shocked by request.

“I was an absolute no,” he said. “This is absolutely contrary to the law, this is a crime. And two, at the same time violating the constitution with the rights of the states.”

At least 10 clerk in Colorado received similar queries from Small, as he focused on voter frauds and election irregularities from protecting voting rights, and increased his requests for information about how they held inappropriate voters to the states.

Fremont district clerk and recorder Justin Grantham, a small side to reach the voting equipment to come to get a phone call asking for the possibility of coming to reach.

Small said he was working with the White House for Donald Trump. Executive order in the March 25 elections. A provision in the measure instructs the internal security secretary to assess the safety of voting equipment “that they are affiliated or integrated into the Internet and that such systems are at risk of endangering through malware and unauthorized interventions in the system”.

“This is the first time I received a request from this nature, Grant Grantham said, Small, the president did not believe that he could give an order of execution engaged in elections. “I don’t want to let anyone come to my office like this.”

Colorado District Clerk General Manager Matt Crane, Small’s demands started the alarm bells, he said. It is a crime in the state to allow unauthorized access to voting equipment. A few clerks and experts said they had never received such a request before. Requests First reported by Washington Post.

Consulting DHS’s Cyber Security and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which deals with election security from 2019 to 2025, said that he has never heard of the federal government trying to access voting machines.

“At any point, no one from CISA wants to seize voting systems,” he said. “Optical is bad. If something went wrong, people could have said it was CISA.”

Crane organized an emergency conference meeting with the clerks last week to discuss social assistance, and that all contact officials were republicans using voting equipment from Dominion voting systems.

Mesa District Clerk and recorder Bobbie Gross said that someone who describes themselves as small does not want to access the machine in their office, but with an even more unusual desire, he said. They wanted to know who the project manager of the district in Dominion was in 2020 and 2021. “This is not a public and demand was rejected,” he said.

A small lawyer requested a comment to Suzanne Taheri. Taheri said that Small had not contacted Mesa district clerk office.

“The person who described themselves as Jeff Small to Clerk Gross’s office was definitely an imitator, because Jeff did not reach anyone from Mesa district and his call diary confirmed this.”

The interest in Dominion is important. Tina Peters, the former Mesa district clerk, adopted the allegations of unfounded conspiracy theory about Dominion, was sentenced to nine years in prison last year for intervening in election equipment after the 2020 elections. Trump asked Peters to be released and tried to help overthrow the case of the Ministry of Justice. The Ministry of Justice also sent Colorado A wide request For election records based on the 2020 elections last month, some speculations are related to the Peters case. A Colorado Man at the beginning of this month He was also arrested Allegedly, the district clerk office of a room with voting equipment in the window of a molotov cocktail type after allegedly throwing a device.

The request comes from the Ministry of Justice’s asking authorities to discover election authorities who cannot secure their election equipment. Criminal can be accused.

Taheri said in a statement, Small, 76 group of work while the paternity permission, voluntarily reached the districts, he said.

“JEFf supported the efforts of the administration’s allies to encourage the election officials of Colorado election officials to participate in the election security executive order,” he said. “The idea that the local clerks who support the implementation of the executive order of the President are somehow inappropriate.”

“Colorado always controls voting machines under the open procedures specified under the state and federal laws.

Colorado Foreign Minister, the best election official of the state Jena Griswold, said the defense is “completely misleading and fraudulent”.

“Of course, election equipment is certified according to both the state and federal standards. The federal standard certificate of the election systems is made in a safe environment by experts. It is not made by consultants or representatives who access the voting equipment of the federal government.” “Any of these is not like this.”

The Ministry of Internal Security has removed him from Small.

“Jeff Small does not speak for the Ministry of Internal Security. He has no role with DHS and never officially authorized to do an official business for the department.” He said.

Crane said he reached local election officials in other states, but no one else received similar demands.

“You start to wonder: ‘Is this more than to verify that our systems are safe?’ ‘