CROWSS UP DRO ELZZ

ELECTIONS

FROM feeds into (conspiracies).”

Colorado State Sen. Steve Fenberg, D-Boulder, prepares to address fellow lawmakers as the legislative session opens in the Senate chambers Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Restricting permissive recounts to races when candidates were within 2 percentage points of each other was a top legislative priority for Griswold this year.

“ e Secretary of State’s o ce does not write legislation but instead works with Colorado’s County Clerks to recommend policies that are needed to administer elections that are free, fair and secure,” Annie Orlo , a Griswold spokeswoman, said in a written statement. “It is disappointing that the Senate president was unwilling to include this already agreed-upon provision that was supported by Colorado’s county clerks and would have protected the state’s dedicated election administrators from performing unnecessary recounts. ese unnecessary recounts are being used by election deniers all over the country as a means to sow doubt and burden election workers to the point they are no longer willing to do these jobs.” e ad was the subject of a campaign nance complaint led by a conservative political nonpro t.

Meanwhile, the provision around how advertising dollars can be spent would prohibit a federal, state or local candidate from being prominently featured — either by name, photograph or likeness — in any advertising by the Colorado Secretary of State’s O ce.

“ is bill is about building condence and trust in our democracy, which includes strengthening transparency standards, preventing con icts of interest and ensuring election administration isn’t perceived as partisan in nature,” Fenberg said in a statement.

Griswold and Williams came under re for appearing together in a TV ad that ran in the months before the 2022 election that was aimed at combating voting conspiracies. e Secretary of State’s O ce spent more than $1 million on the spot.

Griswold, in an interview Tuesday with e Colorado Sun outside of a courtroom where she was testifying against a man who allegedly threatened her, called the provision “reckless.”

“Doing voter education, outreach to Coloradans is something that statewide elected o cials do in the course of normal business,” Griswold said.

“To propose something so dramatic without stakeholding, when lives are literally being threatened, feels very reckless.” e measure also seeks to make candidates’ state nancial disclosures more robust and accessible to the public and expand automatic voter registration to tribal land.

Griswold’s o ce, which in a statement called the restriction “incomprehensible,” said the provision would also restrict its ability to promote business and licensing programs. e advertising provision only applies to Griswold’s o ce, but other statewide elected o cials have used their likeness in ads paid for with public dollars. For instance, the ofce of Treasurer Dave Young, also a Democrat, spent thousands of dollars on Facebook ads that featured the treasurer’s photo publicizing its “Great Colorado Payback” program in the weeks before the November election.

Gov. Jared Polis sent a letter to Colorado taxpayers that accompanied Taxpayer’s Bill of Rights refund checks that were sent out in August and September.

Both Polis and Young, like Griswold, successfully ran for reelection in November.

Fenberg’s bill, which was drafted in partnership with Griswold’s o ce and county clerks, would also make a host of other changes to Colorado’s elections. at includes requiring counties with more than 10,000 voters — more than half of Colorado’s 64 counties — to begin counting ballots at least four days before Election Day in an e ort to ensure results are posted as quickly as possible to prevent election conspiracies from spreading.

Colorado Sun correspondent Sandra Fish contributed to this report.

THANKS for

Answers