Fourth Judicial District Attorney Michael Allen said his office was investigating after a software glitch temporarily exposed his own personal information along with the information of more than 130,000 confidential voters in Colorado.

“This represents a glaring safety issue,” he said Monday during a news conference.

Allen is the Republican candidate for Colorado Attorney General. He is running against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, whose office took responsibility for the breach last week.

In a statement, the Secretary of State’s Office said that the records of confidential voters accidentally became accessible online after a software update Aug. 14. Confidential voters — such as public officials or people with safety concerns like domestic violence survivors — can proactively have their information removed by request from the statewide registration database, which can otherwise be accessed by the public. The database has information like a voter’s full name, address, party affiliation and voting history.

State officials discovered and fixed the issue Aug. 25. According to Griswold’s office, 59 confidential voter records were accessed. Of them, 39 affected voters have been contacted by the Secretary of State’s Office. The “majority but not all” said they accessed their own records, according to correspondence from Deputy Secretary of State Andrew Kline to Colorado State Patrol.

The state has not been able to reach 15 confidential voters whose information was accessed, while the remaining five were sent letters since no other form of contact was listed.

“My office takes the confidentiality of each and every voter’s data extremely seriously. I sincerely regret that this happened. My staff identified this issue, and we immediately fixed it and are continuing outreach to affected voters,” Griswold said.

Griswold’s office did not respond to a request for comment on Allen’s statements.

Allen said he was among the confidential voters whose information was made public and accessed online. He said Griswold notified him by phone on Thursday evening.

“My protected information was apparently accessed twice,” he said.

He said that eight confidential voters in El Paso and Teller counties had their information accessed, and his office has reached out to some. None have reported a crime resulting from the breach. Allen assigned two investigators to follow up, he said.

“Thankfully, it does not appear that any of them are victims of crime, but it only reduces one avenue of concern,” said Allen.

El Paso County Clerk and Recorder Steve Schleiker confirmed Monday that seven confidential voters had their data accessed in El Paso County. He said his office was also contacting affected voters and had requested more information on the specifics of the information exposed. Schleiker said he asked Gov. Jared Polis to have the Office of Information Technology review the incident.

Allen called for an independent law enforcement investigation into the software glitch, claiming that Secretary of State’s Office had not provided adequate information about who might have accessed the confidential voter records.

Last Friday, the Secretary of State’s Office requested assistance from the Colorado State Patrol to examine and address any risk from the breach.

“The Department has no information to suggest any specific public safety issues related to this matter,” Kline wrote.

Griswold and Allen are running against each other to replace Phil Weiser as Colorado Attorney General. Griswold was first elected Colorado Secretary of State in 2018 and is term-limited. In 2024, her office faced scrutiny over the discovery of a security breach that partially exposed passwords for voting machines.

Allen was elected 4th Judicial District Attorney in 2021 after a decade working as a prosecutor in the office that covers El Paso and Teller counties. He said Monday that the attention he was drawing to the security breach was in his capacity as an elected official, not as Griswold’s political opponent.

“I want to be very clear, this is not about politics,” said Allen.