Next week, as Coloradans start filling out their ballots, many will vote via the hundreds of secure drop boxes found at libraries and municipal buildings throughout the state. If former gubernatorial candidate Heidi Ganahl’s latest plan is successful, voters may encounter election fraud conspiracists camped out nearby. Her volunteers, should any appear, will be on the lookout for signs of ballot stuffing, an unproven crime alleged by Dinesh D’Souza’s debunked movie 2000 Mules, and for which the film’s publisher was forced to publicly apologize after pulling the film.
Despite losing in a landslide to Governor Jared Polis two years, former CU Regent Heidi Ganahl has stayed active in Republican politics. After launching a new media and organizing entity, the Rocky Mountain Voice, based on a consultant-driven model from Texas, Ganahl is now working with a pro-Trump election fraud conspiracy group to undermine confidence in Colorado’s elections.
Her plan isn’t original, but rather a reboot of a favorite idea from last election: recruit election fraud conspiracists to “monitor” voter drop boxes. In 2022, it was Joe Oltmann’s extremist group FEC United that pushed its members to organize “ballot box parties,” including at night by parking vehicles nearby and aiming headlights at the drop boxes.
Two weeks ago Ganahl held a press conference in which she cast doubt on 2022 election results in deep-red Douglas County. She insisted the impetus for her investigation was the fact that Republican Kurt Huffman lost a statehouse race to Democrat Bob Marshall despite the district leaning decidedly to the right.
“Kurt ran a good race, and the final numbers simply just didn’t make sense, as every Republican around him won with large margins,” Ganahl said.
Ganahl also questioned the results of her own race in Douglas County, saying the vote count “seemed off as well, and very different from the other Republicans running.”
Huffman indeed lost a close race, though not so close as to trigger an automatic recount. Nevertheless the Secretary of State granted Huffman a “permissive recount,” paid for on his own dime, that simply confirmed his loss.
In April of this year, dissatisfied with that recount, Ganahl hired an attorney to negotiate for another recount conducted by Ganahl’s own people. In addition to the attorney’s fee, Ganahl paid over $12,000 to the county for its time and resources to supervise her private recount.
Ganahl didn’t share the results of the recount at her press conference, instead rehashing claims that voting machines are connected to the internet while counting votes.
In addition to re-examining Douglas County election results, Ganahl is working with Colorado Institute for Fair Elections (COIFFE), which is the state partner of Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, a project created out of Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Mitchell is the Trump lawyer who asked John Eastman, who at the time was teaching at CU Boulder’s Benson Center, to write his infamous “coup memo” outlining how state legislatures could replace presidential electors. Her law firm fired her after it was reported that she was on the phone call with Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger when Trump ordered him to “find” 11,780 ballots needed to flip the state red. In 2022, Mitchell’s group was also pushing activists to monitor ballot drop boxes to prevent fraud.
Bob Cooper was among the COIFFE members who attended Ganahl’s press conference. He focused on discrepancies in the post office invoicing process for undelivered ballots. COIFFE says that raises “chain of custody” questions severe enough that Colorado county canvas boards should not certify election results.
Via one of her attorneys, Ganahl submitted numerous questions, including COIFFE’s concern about USPS invoices of undelivered ballots, to the Douglas County Clerk’s Office. The clerk’s managing attorney responded (in red) with the following explanation:
“Based on what I know about this voting system, none of them [the counties] should certify [the election results],” said Cooper. “If you look at the election regulations, they aren’t given the information they need to do it. They don’t get cast vote records.”
Cooper also repeated various election conspiracies, including that audits conducted by pro-Trump allies in Arizona not only proved fraud (it didn’t), but showed that over 150,000 counterfeit ballots had been cast in the 2020 election (they weren’t).
COIFFE also says it is using software promoted by Mitchell, called EagleAI, to scour Colorado voter rolls for deceased voters. The software can be used to flood clerk’s offices with challenges to voter registrations that are generated not by personal knowledge, but by an algorithm created by election fraud conspiracists.
Ganahl says former Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who is best-known for falsely claiming that over 5,000 non-citizens voted in the 2010 election, is representing her in her effort to organize this drop box monitoring project. Ganahl also says she’s created a donation page to fund legal defense for any volunteers watchers who are arrested because of their actions. As of publication the page has raised $325, or $100 less than Gessler’s hourly rate.
Read all nine questions Ganahl submitted to the Douglas County Clerk’s Office, along with answers from the Clerk’s attorney. The Clerk’s answers are in italics.
Q1: Has Douglas County ever audited the ClearCount-generated Cast Vote Record (CVR) report against the paper ballots?
A: Yes, this happens during the Risk Limiting Audit that is completed following every election.
Q2: On the CVR, what does column (G) labelled “PrecinctPortion” mean?
A: This column indicates the ballot style. Voters receive a ballot style containing only the districts and contests specific to their residential address on which they are eligible to vote.
Q3: Also on the CVR, the column (H) labelled “BallotType” appears to contain the 3-digit precinct number, occasionally followed by a 2-digit ballot type identifier. Is that a correct interpretation of that column?
A: If a 2-digit number is displayed, it is a split identifier indicating that the precinct is split into multiple ballot styles. Voters receive a ballot style containing only the districts and contests specific to their residential address on which they are eligible to vote.
Q4: Does Douglas County do any kind of audit on the signature-verification process?
A: Yes, in accordance with Colorado Election Rules 7.7.8 and 7.7.11.
Q5: Is there any analysis or audit done on citizenship status of those that voted?
A: The Colorado Department of Revenue (CDOR) and Colorado Department of State (CDOS) validate citizenship status at the time of voter registration depending on the method used. CDOR at Driver’s License offices and CDOS for paper and online voter registration. Election workers validate citizenship status for in-person voter registration either at the Elections office or at a Voter Service and Polling Center during an active election.
Q6: Are there web cams on any Douglas County drop boxes? If so, how long is the video retained? Is 2022 footage currently able to be audited or reviewed?
A: Per Colorado law, all ballot drop boxes are under video surveillance during the active voting period; the video is retained for 25 months and is a public record.
Q7: We believe undeliverable ballots were voted in the 2022 General Election. For example, the USPS invoiced Douglas County for 2,919 undeliverable ballots that were not recorded as undeliverable by the County. Comparing change of address records to mailed and returned ballots also suggests some ballots were voted that should have been undeliverable. Would the County be willing to research this? If so, we can provide details.
A: We were billed for 2,919 pieces of undeliverable mail which would include undeliverable correspondence other than ballots. Ballots identified as undeliverable by the USPS are collected directly from the post office by bipartisan election judge teams using chain of custody logs, then securely stored under video surveillance in the Elections office while the voter record for each undeliverable ballot is updated accordingly. The undeliverable ballot packets are never opened and they are stored with all other election artifacts per Colorado law for 25 months after the election.
Q8: We noted a jump in ballot rejections from the first half of the election (rejection rate of 0.75%) to election day (rejection rate of 1.69%). Does Douglas County have an understanding of why this increase happened?
A: The signature verification process is consistent throughout the election cycle. The number of signatures that require further action to cure will vary on a day-to-day basis.
Q9: Comparison of voting system inventory records obtained from the SOS against manufacturer records for those same pieces of equipment indicates that at least some of Douglas County’s ScanStation tabulators were manufactured with wireless networking cards installed. Other hardware apparently was manufactured with Integrated Dell Remote Access Controllers, which have one purpose – remote administration. Has the County ever actually opened up and inspected its voting equipment to verify that wireless networking hardware is not present? If so, then what equipment has been inspected to confirm the presence or absence of wireless accessibility, and when have these inspections occurred?
A: Voting system equipment is first certified at the federal level, then the state level, then verified again during the Trusted Build process. (See attached Trusted Build fact sheet from CDOS.) Voting System Equipment is verified once again during the pre-election Logic and Accuracy test at which time certified Election staff show the bipartisan Canvass Board that Wi-Fi capability is disabled at the core (BIOS) of voting system equipment. This means whether there is or is or is not a Wi-Fi chip, the ability for the computer to use it is disabled. Opening a piece of voting system equipment would violate its certification Trusted Build requirements.
