Surrounded by former Colorado election officials from across the political spectrum, Republican secretary of state nominee Pam Anderson on Wednesday unveiled a list of reforms intended to restore public trust in elections at a campaign event in Denver.

“It’s a wonderful feeling to stand up here with so many of my colleagues and friends — election heroes that, like me as a county clerk, have had a hand in writing and advocating for every single election reform that built this amazing voting model we have here in Colorado,” said Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk, who was flanked by Republican, Democratic and unaffiliated former secretaries of state and county clerks.

“We are at a critical time for a democracy,” Anderson said. “We need to rebuild voter confidence in Colorado, and that starts with our secretary of state checking their partisanship at the door.”

Added Anderson: “Colorado has a history of innovation, and voter-centric reform is not due to the leadership of only one party.”

Anderson has won endorsements from four of the Republicans who held the office she’s seeking — Wayne Williams, Mike Coffman, Donetta Davidson and Gigi Dennis — and dozens of current and former county clerks, including 18 Republicans, eight Democrats and two who were unaffiliated when they held office.

Anderson is hoping to deny Democratic incumbent Jena Griswold a second term as the state’s chief election official. The office also oversees state business, charities and nonprofits.

An architect of Colorado’s all-mail voting system — as a two-term clerk and later as director of the Colorado County Clerks Association — Anderson has been among the system’s most vocal defenders, including in the brutal, three-way primary she won in June against Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters and another Republican, who both based their campaigns on unfounded claims of rigged elections.

Peters is facing multiple felony charges alleging she helped others tamper with her county’s election equipment last summer. After confidential system passwords and election device software appeared on right-wing websites, Griswold ordered the county to replace the equipment and successfully sued to prevent Peters from running the Western Slope county’s elections. Peters has denied all allegations against her, claiming they are politically motivated.  

While she referred obliquely to Peters’ plight a couple times on Wednesday, Anderson mostly kept her fire trained on Griswold, the Democratic incumbent she hopes to defeat in November.

“We’ve seen attacks and false, hyperpartisan rhetoric regarding how elections work and have seen politicians at the state and local level break the public trust by using the platform that people have given them to throw fuel on the fire of mistrust, to elevate their own profiles and fundraise millions of dollars,” Anderson said, invoking a theme of the event by suggesting that Griswold takes an overly partisan approach to the job.

“As we’ve seen the broken trust, whether it’s seeking to run for higher office within months of being elected or asking special interest groups to draft your press releases, I think that we need a fair referee in the office,” Anderson said, referring to an exploratory committee Griswold formed in 2019 to consider a run for the U.S. Senate and an incident when Griswold asked an abortion rights group to review a statement issued by her office.

Several points in the “professional code of conduct” Anderson proposed appeared to be inspired by criticisms she’s lobbed at Griswold, including vows not to “litigate by press release” or “fundraise off of active investigations or legal cases,” references to the public positions Griswold has taken during the Peters investigation.

Anderson also said she wants to pass legislation to “prohibit elected officials from using taxpayer money for ads with any candidate’s image couched as voter outreach,” referencing a TV ad that ran last month featuring Griswold and her Republican predecessor, Wayne Williams, telling viewers to seek out accurate information about elections.

Griswold’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

In a statement issued at the same time Anderson’s press conference got underway, Colorado Democratic Party Chair Morgan Carroll blasted Anderson for having “shamelessly campaigned alongside election deniers, while claiming to fight election misinformation,” pointing to Anderson’s recent appearances at events with top-ticket GOP candidates who claimed the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

“While Anderson says she trusts the results of the 2020 election, her actions demonstrate that she has no problem campaigning with election-denying Republicans who lie about election integrity and sow distrust in our election system,” Carroll said. “Anderson cannot be trusted as Colorado secretary of state.”

Former Denver County Clerk Debra Johnson told Colorado Politics that she changed her registration from Democrat to unaffiliated earlier this year so she could vote for Anderson in the primary.

“The key is to restore public confidence, and that comes with honesty and integrity,” Johnson said. “It’s knowing how Pam operates and how she has operated as a county clerk and as the leadership of the clerks association, that we have the utmost confidence in her ability to restore that confidence in the state of Colorado for the voters. I’m really excited, and I’ve been working hard to make sure that Pam gets elected.”

One of the Democrats who spoke in support of Anderson’s candidacy on Wednesday, former Boulder County Clerk Hillary Hall, told Colorado Politics that Anderson is the only Republican she’s supporting this cycle.

“I’m endorsing Pam because of our shared belief that a democracy works best when it’s inclusive of everyone and it’s equitable,” Hall said. “And that’s what she’s spent over a decade building here in Colorado, and now it’s a nationally recognized model, and she’s one of the leaders that we have of it.”

A Republican, Williams is serving on the nonpartisan Colorado Springs City Council and is a candidate for the city’s mayor. He said Anderson’s experience and expertise in elections are what’s needed amid attempts to undermine confidence in the vote.

“The role of the secretary of state is to ensure the elections are safe and secure and to assure voters that they are safe and secure, and it can be done,” he said. “We’ve done it before in Colorado, and Pam Anderson will do it going forward.”