Colorado is ready for the return of the Big Lie. It never really went away, after all. It was just sort of muted after more than 60 courts across the country ruled unequivocally that the outcome of the 2020 presidential election was fair and accurate, and it was all a giant con.
But it’s an election year and potential losers are hedging their bets, so the Big Lie is making a comeback tour.
Addressing it is a little like playing whack-a-mole — you have to keep knocking back the weirdness wherever it pops up. But here in Colorado we have what it takes to bring the hammer down.
If you don’t believe it, just ask Tina Peters, former Mesa County clerk who last week was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors in connection with her efforts to manufacture evidence in support of the Big Liar.
The message is clear: we don’t mess around when it comes to election fraud. The Peters case is a high-profile example of how the state holds elections officials accountable to protect the integrity of the process.
So, when Trump went off on Truth Social last week, saying all-mail voting was brought about by Gov. Jared Polis and has made Colorado “a POLITICAL CESSPOOL where, even if you were leading, it would make no difference!”, it unleashed a storm of righteous outrage.
Kyle Clark, the 9News anchor, promptly dissected Trump’s rantings, noting that mail-in voting was instituted as a result of a bipartisan effort dating to years before Polis was elected governor and it was “implemented by a Republican secretary of state.”
Clark also noted that the Heritage Foundation, hardly a leftie bunch, had uncovered only 15 cases of voter fraud in the 10 years since mail-in voting began in Colorado.
“The two most prominent cases were a former GOP chair and a man suspected of killing his wife who admitted casting her ballot for Trump,” he said.
Both were apprehended and prosecuted.
Catching cheaters is one strategy for ensuring free and fair elections in Colorado, but there are several others.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold said protecting elections involves a galaxy of programs to ensure the integrity of the process. They include using paper ballots because they “can’t be hacked,” maintaining the security surrounding vote-counting equipment, having a strict chain of custody of all ballots and equipment, doing background checks on election workers, launching a cyber command center to counter any potential threats to systems, and assembling bipartisan teams to test equipment and oversee voting audits.
Still, she knows there always will be skeptics and doubters.
With all the disinformation that has been circulating about mail ballots since 2016, “it has shaken some people’s confidence,” she said. “We may not be able to convince everybody, but we want to make sure there’s enough good information out there.”
It seems to be working. Ninety percent of voters use mail-in ballots, she said.
But the hostile minority who have embraced the disinformation circulating from foreign adversaries and sore losers in this country can wreak real havoc.
The Big Lie has incited a torrent of violent threats against elections officials and poll workers in Colorado.
In the past year, Griswold alone has received more than 900 threats over bogus election fraud accusations. For this and other reasons, the state has seen a 38% turnover rate in county clerks since 2020.
The secretary of state’s office has created a $5 million fund for security personnel to protect county officials from people trying to disrupt elections and to apprehend those who attempt to harm people or the process.
It’s a crime in Colorado to threaten election workers. It’s also against the law to carry firearms openly at polling places or where ballots are being processed.
“It can get really scary,” Griswold said. “No person should have to face death threats for doing their jobs.”
The system that Trump flagrantly, deceptively mischaracterizes as a “CESSPOOL” is one of the most respected elections operations in the country, dubbed “the gold standard” by the League of Women Voters.
Every registered voter is checked for eligibility, Griswold said, and every signature on every ballot is checked to make sure only one ballot is cast per registered voter. The state is also part of an interstate compact that compares ballots to make sure no one is voting more than once.
“If we find any indication of double-voting, it’s referred for prosecution,” she said, “but it’s extremely rare.”
Nobody takes that for granted, though. It requires constant vigilance.
The pressure is intense on every county clerk and every election worker to ensure each voter is eligible and every vote is counted. Protecting elections requires the willingness to hold every scofflaw, every cheat, every bad actor accountable.
Which brings us back to Tina Peters, the most recent example that the system is working.
Her sentencing is scheduled for Oct. 3. We could see her in an orange jumpsuit by Election Day 2024.
Diane Carman is a Denver communications consultant.
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