Colorado Leaked Voter Password Lawsuit Calls for Hand Count • Colorado Newsline

Griswold, as well as Republican and Democratic election officials across Colorado and other election experts, have done so appeared confident that Tuesday's general election in Colorado remains safe. U.S. Representative Lauren Boebert, the Republican candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Colorado's 4th Congressional District, who expressed doubts about the 2020 election, said Wednesday“I trust our county officials to conduct this election well and ensure that every legal vote counts.”

Griswold admitted Tuesday that the passwords were hidden but accessible in a spreadsheet posted online. She said she had known about the revelation since Oct. 24, but county officials who administer elections across the state were not informed of it until late Tuesday.

The leak was revealed in a mass email from the Colorado Republican Party, which said it learned of the leak after an unnamed person sent the party an affidavit attesting to how the person did had discovered it. The affidavit says the leak involved Basic Input Output System, or BIOS, passwords for more than 700 voting system components in every Colorado county except Las Animas.

Colorado officials said Friday that state officials were finished the process of updating passwords on voting equipment across the state in affected counties.

The lawsuit argues that BIOS passwords could give a person access to critical parts of a county's election management system and “allow the user to manipulate the data,” and alleges that updating the passwords in the affected counties “causes a “Creates a circumstance in which the previous certifications of the voting systems involved are invalid.”

“We have to switch off. We have to shut down immediately,” Wiley said in a telephone interview on Friday. “We demand a hearing on Monday. We want the machines to stop counting immediately because every ballot that goes through them and the chain of custody that goes through them is put at risk.

State and county officials have emphasized that the use of BIOS passwords requires personal physical access to the voting machines, which are kept in secure areas subject to controlled key card access and 24-hour video surveillance. Under an emergency rule passed Thursday, state cybersecurity employees who helped change the passwords will also “review logs to ensure no tampering occurred,” Gov. Jared Polis' office said.

The person whose affidavit was shared with the state Republican Party said the passwords were disclosed as part of a spreadsheet at least as early as Aug. 8. However, Wiley said he was in possession of a copy of the table of exposed passwords that his investigative team downloaded in June – meaning the passwords were exposed at least as early as June, ahead of Colorado's June 25 primary, he said he.

He didn't realize his copy of the spreadsheet contained the exposed passwords until news of their existence emerged this week, he said.

When asked for comment, a spokesperson for Griswold said they could not comment on the litigation.

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