DENVER (KDVR) – June is here and the state is getting ready for primary elections at the end of this month. Before that happens, election leaders are testing their equipment take to make sure everything is running the way it should.
These tests are done every year before every election, but after debunked claims of election misconduct spread last year, officials want the public to know elections are safe.
“This is part of what we do. It’s why Denver and other counties here in Colorado have a safe, transparent, and secure system,” Denver County Clerk and Recorder Paul López said Wednesday.
Election leaders want to keep it that way. They are running tests on their equipment to make sure they are ready for the upcoming primary.
“This is our logic and accuracy test so we do this before every single election to test the accuracy of our equipment,” López explained to members of the press.
A bipartisan team hand-marked 32 ballots, one for each precinct in the state. They then ran them through the scanners to make sure the hand tally and system tabulations line up.
“We use Dominion software and that’s something we’ve been using since day one. It is very accurate and they’ve been a great partner and we’ve had flawless elections because of that software,” López said.
But Dominion equipment is back in the headlines this week. According to the Associated Press, the U.S. Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency (CISA) found there are some software flaws within some of the Denver-based company’s machines but they said there is no evidence those equipment flaws have led to any election results being altered or exploited.
The Colorado Department of State told us Colorado does not use the type of software that was tested for the CISA report.
Their statement read:
“Security and elections experts in the Department have reviewed CISA’s advisory and remain confident in the security of Colorado’s elections. There is no evidence that any of the potential risks identified in CISA’s advisory have been exploited in any election in Colorado or elsewhere. Colorado is one of the nation’s leaders in secure elections and already implements a range of security measures that protect the state’s election equipment and voting systems from threats, including many of the mitigations CISA recommends. CISA has also confirmed that the software that was tested is not used in Colorado’s voting systems.”
– Colorado Department of State regarding CISA advisory
Colorado counties have until June 7 to finish testing their equipment before the June primary.
