Denver district attorney is investigating the leak of voting passwords in Colorado

DENVER -- The Denver district attorney's office has opened an investigation into the leak of voting system passwords that were posted on a state website for months leading up to the election and only taken down last month.

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold has characterized the leak as an accident, adding that it did not pose an “immediate" security threat, which the Colorado County Clerks Association concurred with. The passwords are only one part of a layered security system and can only be be used to access voting systems in person in secured and surveilled rooms.

“The Department of State is supporting and working closely with the Denver District Attorney’s investigation,” said Kailee Stiles, a spokesperson for the secretary of state's office. “We welcome the additional transparency.”

Matt Jablow, a spokesperson for the Denver DA's office, declined to provide further information about the investigation.

The mistake comes amid skepticism over voting systems and brought swift criticism from the Colorado Republican Party. Elections nationwide remain fair and reliable.

The passwords were on a hidden tab of a spreadsheet that was posted by a staff member on the secretary of state's website. Once the leak was made public, Gov. Jared Polis and Griswold launched a statewide effort to change the passwords and check for tampering.

On election day a judge rejected a request from the state's Libertarian Party to have ballots counted by hand because of the leak. Judge Kandace Gerdes said there was no evidence it was used to compromise or alter voting equipment.

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Bedayn is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Associated Press writer Colleen Slevin in Denver contributed to this report.