The group organizing a late July petition campaign to recall Gov. Jared Polis also has its eyes on Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

Polis Recall 2021 said in a statement to Colorado Politics on Thursday that they have now officially amended the name of the group to Recall Polis-Griswold 2021. Recall organizer Lori Cutunilli of Breckenridge said they plan to start a petition drive in late July.

Because of the potential for a conflict of interest, the Griswold recall will be handled by the State Auditor’s office, which is in statute and was confirmed Friday by the auditor’s office.

In order to recall Polis, the campaign has to gather 631,266 valid signatures, and for Griswold they must collect 623,159 valid signatures. Both petitions will likely need somewhere near a million signatures in order to meet the valid signature goal.

This is the third recall attempt against the governor since he took office in 2019. Both previous efforts, one led by the same group attempting this month’s recall, failed to turn in any signatures.

The cited reason for recalling Griswold are tied to her announcement on June 17 for emergency rules for voting systems. The recall statement said that the rulemaking would change audit procedures by prohibiting third-party audits, such as those underway in Arizona and contemplated in Pennsylvania.

“Free and fair elections are critical to the success of our democracy and fair election should withstand any audit,” the recall statement said.

Cutunilli told Colorado Politics that the US Election Integrity Plan filed a petition to challenge the June 17 emergency rules. The petition claims there is no “nexus between noncompliance with a state and/or federal law and how such alleged noncompliance renders the June 17, 2021, SOS Emergency Rules ‘imperatively necessary’ ” and that the Secretary of State is using a nationwide concern, not a statewide concern, to adopt emergency rules. The Integrity Plan’s Colorado chapter, co-founded by Holly Kasun of Dillon.*

The recall statement also raised concerns that Griswold “illegally certified” Dominion Voting Systems equipment for use in the 2020 election. “There is great concern as to the legality of Griswold’s allowing Dominion to perform modifications which are currently underway and suspected to be violations of Federal and State laws governing election records preservation.”

The statement did not identify the laws allegedly being broken. Dominion has filed lawsuits against numerous Republican operatives, lawyers (including Sidney Powell and former President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani), and conservative news sites for their claims that Dominion voting systems had changed votes in the 2020 election in favor of President Joe Biden.

There has not been one credible claim that this actually happened, and the claims that Dominion changed votes have been debunked in every state where the voting results were challenged.

The reasons for recalling Polis include allegedly unconstitutional actions related to the pandemic, notably, the issuance of a public health emergency order that the governor has extended for more than a year. The recall statement said the emergency orders did not allow for closing businesses, churches or schools or for mandating masks.

“By retaining Colorado in a state of emergency, Polis has sole discretion in spending all Federal COVID Relief funds, among other privileges,” the statement said. It also cited recent reporting by Colorado Public Radio that said Colorado had the highest death toll among nursing home residents in the country during the 2020 holidays.

The recall statement attributed the deaths to negligence and a Polis public health order that put COVID-19 patients into nursing homes.

The 2020 effort to recall the governor failed, the group claimed, largely because of COVID-19 restrictions that inhibited the group’s efforts to collect petition signatures. They initially planned to appeal to the courts but dropped that effort earlier this year. 

The 2020 group raised $14,853 for its petition drive in 2020. Cutunilli and related businesses were the campaign’s largest donors, both for cash and non-monetary contributions, at $12,458. The 2021 committee has so far raised less than $500, according to the Secretary of State’s TRACER campaign finance database. As of June 21, Cutunilli is the only individual donor. 

Griswold’s office declined to comment.

A Polis spokesman said Friday that “Governor Polis has responded swiftly and boldly to the unique challenges created by this global pandemic, thanks to his leadership and the dedication and grit of Coloradans our state was one of the first states to safely reopen, is on pace to vaccinate 70% of adults by July 4, and Colorado’s economy is roaring back.

“The Governor has delivered on his promise to provide free full-day kindergarten and universal pre-school to Colorado’s children, fought against special interests to lower the cost of health care, provided tax relief for small businesses and families and taken bold climate action putting Colorado on the path to 100% renewable energy by 2040. Coloradans don’t want their leaders to quibble or engage in political gamesmanship especially as we recover from the pandemic, and Governor Polis is working around the clock to deliver real results and ensure we all build back stronger than before.”

Correction: a previous version identified the US Election Integrity Plan as being associated with the recall group. Kasun told Colorado Politics that her organization is “non-partisan, 100% volunteer, and solely focused on election integrity.”

Petition challenging SOS emergency rules on voting systems