On opening day of Colorado’s legislative session, some Republicans refuse to approve 2024 election results

Six Republican state representatives Wednesday objected to the certification of Colorado’s November election, alleging without evidence that last year’s leak of voting system passwords compromised the integrity of the results.

Reps. Ken DeGraaf and Scott Bottoms, both of Colorado Springs, led the push to question the election results in an echo of the Republican election denial movement that began in 2020.

They also called for an investigation into Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat who is widely expected to run for governor.

Democrats blasted the protest vote as an “unwarranted and unprecedented” attempt to undermine the results of a fair election in Colorado.

Voting system passwords were mistakenly posted to the Colorado Secretary of State’s website for months last year before being taken down.

State election officials said they subsequently changed all of the passwords and analyzed logs to ensure the systems hadn’t been tampered with. Nonetheless, the incident fueled further skepticism of U.S. elections — particularly on the political right, where disinformation has been spread widely in recent years.

In November, the Denver District Attorney’s Office launched an investigation into the leak. Prosecutors found no evidence that a crime was committed and declined to pursue charges against anyone involved in what was determined to be an accident.

A third-party investigation into the password leak commissioned by the state also found no evidence of malice. The probe recommended changes to security procedures and pointed out lapses in the Colorado Secretary of State’s procedures. 

The passwords were changed once the breach became known in late October. There is no evidence anyone used the leaked passwords to access any voting equipment without permission.

Even the Republicans who refused to certify the 2024 election results on Wednesday acknowledged they didn’t have any evidence that the password breach led to wrongdoing.

“I have no proof that any of those passwords were used to do anything, nobody else has proof of that,” Bottoms said in a speech on the House floor Wednesday. “But I think it would be naïve to assume that one person did not change at least one vote.”

In Colorado, election results are first certified at the county level, then by the Secretary of State’s Office. The legislature then forms a Committee on Credentials to confirm the Secretary of State’s report.

“Opposition to this motion is quite frankly dangerous to our democracy. We’ve seen what happened when Congress went down this path four years ago and elected officials refused to certify results,” said Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Democrat from Fort Collins, alluding to the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump.

“We cannot, we should not go down that road in the state of Colorado,” he said.

Reps. Brandi Bradley, Stephanie Luck, Larry Don Suckla and Ron Weinberg joined DeGraaf and Bottoms in voting against confirming the results. Each won reelection in November under the very results they refused to certify.

Every House Democrat and most of the 22 Republicans in the House voted to confirm the results, while no one in the state Senate objected to the election results.

Colorado Sun reporter Jesse Paul contributed to this report.