Colorado county clerks mobilize against election misinformation ahead of 2024 decision
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GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — County clerks from around Colorado gathered in Grand Junction for a conference in early August, but they didn’t publicize the time and location because of concerns about safety and security.
Since the 2020 presidential election, conspiracy theories about voter fraud and misinformation about how elections operate have run amok online. Local government employees that administer elections are often targets of those conspiracy theories, and receive threats and attacks on their personal integrity.
“We've never seen anything like we have after the 2020 election, where a sitting president puts forth lies and disinformation about elections,” said Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, the organization running the conference.
“People use the stolen election narrative now for political purposes, for financial purposes. So that's really had a damaging effect on election administration, on the people who work in this field.”
County clerks are elected officials that run the clerk and recorder’s office in each of Colorado’s 64 counties. Besides administering elections, that office is responsible for registering and titling vehicles, issuing marriage licenses and recording property information.
“We don't make the laws,” said Tressa Guynes, the clerk and recorder for Montrose County. “We just are the ones that have to communicate the laws and make sure that each person complies with that.”
What has historically been an important, albeit unsung, civil job is now highly visible and incredibly stressful.
“It's never been to a point where we have received threats not only to ourselves but our teams and our election judges and our buildings and voters. We've never had to deal with that before,” said Carly Koppes, Weld County Clerk and Recorder.
She’s received death threats, and intimidating emails that she’d be sent to Guantanamo Bay for “war crimes”.
“I have received threats against me – calling for me to be dragged out of my office and the army is coming to get me,” Koppes said.
“Other election offices around the state have dealt with people saying they are going to break windows, etc. … I had a small group of people in 2022 come and bang on our doors to get in.”
At the CCCA conference in Grand Junction, where election workers heard from the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, security was a major topic.
“This particular election, I'm really focusing a lot on security,” said Tiffany Lee, the La Plata County clerk and recorder.
“We've always had some type of security at some level, but we're even advancing it more,” Lee said.
Among the safety precautions were conference attendees hiding their badges when out in public.
“We're watching our conversations, I used to be proud [to say] ‘yes, I'm a county clerk.’ Now, I don't tell people my profession when I'm out and about,” said Lee.
Lee and other clerks are being proactive about increasing security, and fighting misinformation. From planning what to do if someone spreads a rumor about a ballot drop box being closed on election day, to getting help from the federal government.
“I'm working with Homeland [Security]. Many of us are. They come and do security assessments for us. [We’re] doing pretty well, but then there's some highlighted areas that I never even thought about,” said Lee.
Some of the extra security measures are obvious, such as more cameras around ballot drop boxes, and others affect election workers’ daily lives.
“I had to change my routine every day. I have to come in to work at a different time. We've got to leave work at a different time,” said Koppes.
She said anyone, from the secretary of state to county clerks in less populated areas can become fixations for election deniers and purveyors of disinformation.
It’s not just elected officials, Crane says citizens that volunteer as election judges are the heart of the process.
“It's your friends and neighbors who are doing this work. So when you attack an election process, you think, well, it's just a clerk there. Know you're attacking the entire community of men and women who dedicate themselves to this work,” said Crane.
Video produced by Jeremy Moore, Rocky Mountain PBS
While it may seem counterintuitive, opening up the process by facilitating public tours of ballot counting processes, for example, inspires further confidence from voters, Crane said.
“We had to open up and be more transparent, talk more, go out more into the public square to talk about what we do,” he said.
“Because, you know, when the public square only has disinformation, that's what people are going to hear. So we have to be aggressive with the truth in the public square so that people can know what really happened.”
Conspiracy theorists have grasped at personal or political connections between election workers and other public figures and presented them as evidence that election results can’t be trusted.
Crane’s wife used to work for Dominion Voting Systems doing contract work and conspiracy theorists latched on to that fact to harass him and his family.
“I’m a Republican [and] I stood up right after the 2020 election and said the stolen election narrative is not true,” said Crane.“People have made it a point to come after my wife and I, up to and including death threats, against she and I and our children.”
That kind of pressure is taking its toll on local election workers.
“In Colorado, we've lost over 32% of our not only elected clerk and recorders, but also the election staff. It has been challenging to find people that want to come in and work in our sphere because unfortunately, the threats have been real, the bad actors are real,” said Koppes.
That means 48% of Coloradans will have their elections administered by people who are new to the job, according to a study by Issue One on election officials leaving their positions in western states.
The county clerk’s conference coincidentally took place the same week as the trial against former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters for her involvement in the breach of local election equipment.
After months of delays, the trial began at the county courthouse, blocks away from the Grand Junction Convention Center where the clerks gathered.
Colorado Public Radio reports Peters was found guilty on four felonies for her part in giving a man unauthorized access to county voting equipment in 2021.
Though the job has gotten more challenging in recent years, election workers see it as a vital part of democracy.
“We know how important having a single person's voice is. One of the things that I explain is the ballot doesn't care what you have in your bank account. It's the greatest equalizer we have in the nation, in my opinion,” said Koppes.