Griswold Issues Election Security Statement

DENVER - Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold issued a statement this evening regarding conflicting information emanating from the country's intelligence officials regarding the threat of foreign interference in the November 3rd General Election.

"Today’s announcement from the intelligence community underscores what we’ve known is true: foreign adversaries are working to undermine confidence in our electoral process. Colorado takes these threats seriously," Griswold said.

The Secretary continued, "We lead the nation in cyber preparedness, and have worked to strengthen our systems and closely coordinate with federal government partners. We continually innovate to be prepared for new and emerging threats, including through the formation of the Rapid Response Election Security Cyber Unit within the Secretary of State’s Office and the launch of our recent initiative to counter disinformation."

The statement followed an extraordinary flurry of news from the nation's capital.

First, Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, the nation’s top intelligence official, called a conference to alert the public to the threat he said Tehran poses to the November election. Ratcliffe had little to say however about Russia, whose efforts to undermine U.S. democracy the White House has repeatedly downplayed.

This view was then contradicted almost immediately by unnamed intelligence officials concerned that it's the Kremlin that poses the greater threat of election interference, not Tehran.

“Overall, Russia is still a much bigger danger than Iran,” said one intelligence official, speaking to the Washington Post. Like others, the official spoke on the condition of anonymity not only because of the matter’s sensitivity, but because their briefing was in stark disagreement to Director Ratcliffe.

This confusion was too much for Secretary Griswold who sought to calm and clarify the message for concerned Coloradans. "All Coloradans play a role in countering disinformation," Griswold said. "When it comes to elections, opinions can be fun but facts are much better. Make sure to get election information from reliable, official sources like GoVoteColorado.gov."

In a separate release the Secretary of State's office that 1,283,187 ballots have been cast or returned thus far, more than one-third of Colorado's total voter registration.