El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker said on a Colorado Springs radio program Thursday that he would call for the resignation of Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold after the top election official admitted the leak of voting computer passwords online earlier this week.

“Right now (what) I’m looking (at) as a clerk and recorder is the competency level, the lack of leadership in the secretary of state, and I am sitting here and prepared to ask for her resignation as the El Paso County clerk and recorder,” Schleiker said while appearing on KVOR’s Richard Randall Show Thursday morning. 

Hours later, Schleiker told The Gazette he was waiting to clarify his position until the release of a statement his office plans to put out in the next couple of days. 

The security breach was brought to the public’s attention Tuesday by the Colorado Republican Party in a file posted to the Secretary of State’s Office website. Griswold said a person in her office posted an online spreadsheet that “improperly” included voting equipment passwords. 

“We have no reason to believe that there are any security breaches or compromises in the state of Colorado,” Griswold said in an interview with Gazette news partner 9News on Tuesday. 

Colorado voting system passwords did not start getting changed until after password leak became public

According to 9News, the passwords were visible for months in a hidden tab of a spreadsheet posted on the Secretary of State’s Office website that lists voting machines used by county clerks by serial number, county, model and vendor.

When unhidden, the tab showed one of two passwords necessary to make changes in each computer. 

A spokesperson with the Secretary of State’s Office said that knowledge of the passwords was not enough to pose an “immediate security threat” to the election, and that elections have “many layers of security.” The spokesperson said the two passwords necessary to access a voting computer are kept separately, and the machines must be accessed in-person in a secure room. 

In an email Thursday, the Secretary of State’s Office announced it would be modifying election rules to allow a background-checked employee with cybersecurity experience to change the passwords on an emergency basis. The designated employee may also “investigate the voting system,” according to the new rule.  

Alongside Colorado Department of State employees and in coordination with county clerks, the designated employees will enter only badged areas, in pairs, to update the passwords for election equipment in counties, a joint news release from Polis’ and Griswold’s offices said Thursday. They will be directly observed by elections officials from the local county clerk’s office.

Schleiker confirmed that a Secretary of State’s Office employee as well as two local clerk’s office employees changed the passwords on El Paso County voting machines at the Clerk and Recorder’s Office Thursday afternoon. He said that the process was observed by a bipartisan panel of two Republican and two Democratic election judges. 

The governor’s and secretary of state’s offices said the goal was to update all the passwords by Thursday evening, as well as check the security of all voting components. 

Schleiker said he was not concerned about a breach of security in his county. He said that the affected components required more than one password to make changes and that the room with voting machines was protected with alarms and on-site security. 

In 2023, the El Paso County Clerk and Recorder replaced its voting machines with ones that were not Wi-Fi enabled and could only be accessed physically, he said. 

“I never had any concerns here in El Paso County whatsoever,” Schleiker said. 

Though the disclosed passwords were visible online for months, Griswold’s office only began changing them after the Colorado Republican Party publicized its discovery of the passwords on Tuesday, 9News reported.

Multiple Colorado Republican leaders have since called for Griswold’s resignation. GOP chair Dave Williams called Wednesday for an emergency legislative hearing to investigate the incident. Calling the breach and Griswold’s response a “cover up,” he announced Tuesday he was raising money to sue the Secretary of State. 

Colorado Republicans urge Griswold to resign after election equipment passwords were posted online

Schleiker said on the radio program that he had been fielding calls from constituents about the leak.

“The clerk and recorders are in the trenches, and we are the ones answering the questions from our voters and citizens, not the Secretary of State’s Office,” he said on the show.  

He said on the show that he and other clerk and recorders statewide had a meeting with the deputy secretary of state but had not heard from Griswold personally by Thursday morning. 

“I was not very pleased with the security breach,” he said.