The Trump campaign is demanding that Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold immediately halt the count of mail ballots to conduct testing on the state's election software in the wake of the discovery of the disclosure of passwords to voting systems.
A Colorado law firm representing the Trump presidential campaign made the demand in a letter sent to Griswold on Wednesday.
Griswold, a Democrat who supported the Colorado Supreme Court's decision to remove former President Donald Trump from the Colorado primary ballot last December, is under fire after the discovery on the department's website of a spreadsheet with a hidden tab that included passwords to configure system settings for the state's voting systems.
Griswold knew about the disclosure on Oct. 24, five days before it became public, but didn't change the codes. The passwords had been posted for several months and were discovered Tuesday by Colorado Republican Party Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman, 9News reported.
The passwords are now being changed "out of an abundance of caution."
"Ultimately, a civil servant made a serious mistake and we're actively working to address it," Griswold told Colorado Public Radio News. "Humans make mistakes."
The person who posted the spreadsheet no longer works in Griswold's office, though Griswold did not say if the person was fired.
"It's bad. Let me emphasize that we have other precautions in place, but the fact that a serious breach occurred is troubling," former Republican Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams told 9News.
Colorado law firm Gessler Blue Law, on behalf of the Trump campaign, demanded Griswold halt the processing of mail ballots and scan them again if necessary, until accuracy tests are performed to ensure election integrity.
"[T]his inconvenience is necessary because it is the only way to guarantee that the elections equipment in those counties whose current BIOS passwords were disclosed by your office are secure and that the chain-of-custody for that equipment required by Colorado law and regulations is unbroken," attorney Scott Gessler wrote to Griswold on Wednesday.
Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., called on Griswold to resign, and a state senator is calling for an investigation into "the ever widening election scandal and cover-up."
"Jena Griswold was made aware of the leaked passwords on October 24th. She didn't change those leaked passwords until yesterday when the story became public," Boebert said in a post to X on Thursday. "This is the same woman who supported keeping Trump off the ballot in Colorado. She not only needs to resign, she needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."
Colorado state Sen. Kevin Van Winkle is calling for an emergency hearing into the matter, saying, Griswold's "public response was insufficient and raised even more concerns than it addressed."