Mesa County is not the only county with a rogue county clerk messing with its election equipment anymore. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office is looking into a second potential breach of election equipment, this time in Elbert County.

The story is similar to what we’ve been dealing with in Mesa County. Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office said that Elbert County Clerk Dallas Schroeder, a Republican, admitted in an affidavit that he made an image of his county’s voting system sometime around Aug. 27, but has not disclosed how that copy was made or what security measures were taken, according to reporting by The Daily Sentinel’s Charles Ashby.

The image allegedly was taken before a routine “trusted build” of the county’s election equipment, but it is unknown if the Eastern Plains clerk also took an image after that computer software upgrade.

Griswold’s office said it has made attempts to get answers from Schroeder, but he has declined to respond.

“The Elbert County clerk has failed to respond to both an email and an Election Order requiring disclosure of information about this potential breach,” Griswold said in a statement. “That is why I am now taking further action.”

Mesa County under Clerk Tina Peters is also accused of making before-and-after images of the county’s voting equipment before a May 2021 “trusted build,” then represented them at a South Dakota event hosted by MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell.

There is a lawful way to make these images that is entirely within the rules, but there are safeguards put in place to make sure the machines are still secure. Peters, and now it appears the Elbert County clerk, did not follow those rules.

The Larimer County Clerk’s Office did something similar to our rogue clerks last year, but sought prior permission, and even received help from Griswold’s office in doing so. That office followed the rules and so no one is under investigation for potentially breaking the law.

There isn’t anything wrong in wanting to verify that an election machine is working properly or that the votes that have been counted are accurate and made by people who are allowed to vote.

Just this past election, the Mesa County commissioners authorized a series of steps to recount the vote and post information online for people to inspect for themselves. That’s all fine.

While the current issues have come from Republican-led offices, we’ve seen Democratic clerks behave badly in the past as well.

What these clerks have shown is that there are places where our system isn’t as secure as we’d like, but it’s not because of widespread voter fraud. It’s from these county clerks acting unilaterally as though they are above the law.

Grand Junction Daily Sentinel editorial board