DENVER — Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Denver Clerk and Recorder Paul López have both temporarily taken down their public-facing campaign finance systems to redact the personal information of elected officials and political candidates.
Both elected officials said they decided to do this following the killing of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband.
“My heart really goes out to their families. The fact that Representative Hortman and her husband were killed, and then there was an assassination attempt on another representative and his wife, is just outrageous,” Griswold said.
Griswold said after consulting with legislative leaders and statewide officials, her office decided to take down Tracer, the statewide campaign finance disclosure website, temporarily as a safety solution.
“This will allow legislators, other elected officials, and candidates to request redactions of their home addresses. As soon as those redactions are completed, Tracer will be put back online,” Griswold said.
At the local level, López’s office decided to take down the candidate tracker database, which lists current candidates that will appear on the ballot.
“This is so that we can ensure that any of that information that was shared could not be used to potentially harm a public servant or anybody,” López said.
López said he has heard from several elected officials who are concerned for their own safety.
“That's something that I, as the clerk and recorder, not just this time around, but over time, people have expressed that to me,” López said.
López said the move to take down the database is temporary.
“We'll get that back online for folks because we believe that, you know, transparency and security co-exist,” López said. “We've taken a lot of measures and safeguards, physical improvements, you know, training everything possible to make sure that we're safeguarding against any kind of those threats like that.”
However, López said recently that the Trump administration's cuts have raised some concerns for his department.
“No longer having the support of the federal administration when it comes to cyber information security, no longer having that kind of support and intelligence to provide elections officials, that was purposely removed and dismantled and defunded s since this president has been in office and it is alarming. However, we also have different layers, and part of those layers is making sure that we are working with state law enforcement local law enforcement to make sure that whether you're voting or running for office, it is safe and you can count on that being something that you should be able to do without any kind of threats of violence or acts of violence against you,” López said.
López said political violence should not be normalized, and no Coloradan should be afraid to participate in the democratic process.
