Speaker 1: Joining me now.
Speaker 2: She is a familiar person to people who listened to
Speaker 2: this show. Heidi Ganal ran for governor and now she
Speaker 2: is not letting up. She is out there, sounded the
Speaker 2: alarm about some potential issues in our voting system, and
Speaker 2: had a presser last week to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Heidi Ganal.
Speaker 3: How are you hi, miss Manny. I'm doing great. How
Speaker 3: about you?
Speaker 1: I'm doing fantastic.
Speaker 2: And you know, Heidi, I know you a little bit now,
Speaker 2: as they say, And one of the things that impresses
Speaker 2: me about you is that you ran a very tough
Speaker 2: governor's race. You did not succeed, but it has not
Speaker 2: stopped your passion for making sure that Coloraden's have a
Speaker 2: government that they can trust and that they can be
Speaker 2: proud of. And you've just pretty much not stopped since
Speaker 2: your race in continuing to find ways to make Colorado better.
Speaker 2: And I just appreciate that about you very very much,
Speaker 2: because a lot of people would have just taken their
Speaker 2: marbles and gone home.
Speaker 3: You know, I wanted to for a little bit, believe me, Mandy,
Speaker 3: but I care so much about this state and I
Speaker 3: want my kids to stay here, my grandkids to stay here.
Speaker 3: So after I learned so much about how the sausage
Speaker 3: is made. I think that's one of the biggest disservices
Speaker 3: candidates can make to their voters is to just walk
Speaker 3: away and not share what they learned, what they would
Speaker 3: do differently, how we can make things better.
Speaker 2: So what did your what was your press conference about
Speaker 2: last week? Let's just jump in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so my press conference was about some findings we
Speaker 3: made in I would call it an audit of the
Speaker 3: twenty two election regarding Douglas County. And it wasn't really
Speaker 3: about my race. It was more about Kurt Huffman's race,
Speaker 3: who ran for House District forty three and lost. It's
Speaker 3: in Highlands Ranch and he lost in a Republican plus
Speaker 3: ten district in Douglas County, and Kurt raide a really
Speaker 3: good race. He was incumbent, and the final numbers just
Speaker 3: didn't make a lot of sense that we were looking
Speaker 3: at that Kurt and I were talking about it. My
Speaker 3: numbers were even a little weird. So we said, well,
Speaker 3: let's just ask for a recount. That's our right, you know,
Speaker 3: that's every citizen's right. And we did that right after
Speaker 3: the election, and the whole process was crazy. They just
Speaker 3: blocked us at every turn, wouldn't let us do what
Speaker 3: we were You know, our rights constitutionally are to do
Speaker 3: and get access to see things that we should have
Speaker 3: been able to see. So that prompted me to hire
Speaker 3: an attorney to dig in a bit and say, why
Speaker 3: are they blocking us? Why don't they want us to
Speaker 3: see things? And it took us about sixteen months to
Speaker 3: actually make any progress, but we did make progress. And
Speaker 3: I have to say Jerry Davis, the clerk in Douglas County,
Speaker 3: has been wonderful to work with, very accommodating. So is
Speaker 3: her staff. I think this goes bigger to Jennick Griswold
Speaker 3: and the Secretary of State's office. And so it took
Speaker 3: two years to do this analysis and we got the
Speaker 3: results through the beginning of the results a couple of
Speaker 3: weeks ago, so we wanted to share it with the public.
Speaker 1: So what did you guys discover?
Speaker 2: And to be clear, Heidi, this is not about past elections, correct,
Speaker 2: This is just concerns that you guys have about our
Speaker 2: elections going forward. To be clear about that, because I'm
Speaker 2: getting snotty, like, you know, oh, she's an election tonight.
Speaker 2: This is not about any pass election, really, right, I
Speaker 2: mean what you know? Yeah, So go ahead and talk
Speaker 2: about what you guys found.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Mandy, this is about restoring trust for the people
Speaker 3: that don't trust our elections and don't want to vote
Speaker 3: because of it, and that's a travesty. So I thought,
Speaker 3: what can we do to restore trust? Well, I always
Speaker 3: believe sunshine is the best cure for that. So one
Speaker 3: of the things that we discovered, which we weren't really
Speaker 3: looking for, was that the machines the voting systems actually
Speaker 3: do have remote Wi Fi access and can connect to
Speaker 3: the Internet. And I'm not saying anything happened, but the
Speaker 3: potential for bad actors to do something is there. And
Speaker 3: this is what really kicks me off me and he
Speaker 3: is that many of our public officials have been misleading
Speaker 3: I would venture to say lying in the case of
Speaker 3: Jenna Griswold, because she knows everything that goes on in
Speaker 3: our elections, and it really upsets me that they just
Speaker 3: aren't honest and talking about security and state when it
Speaker 3: comes to the voting systems. And I'd love to read
Speaker 3: you a quote from Jenni Griswold if it would help
Speaker 3: put things in perspective.
Speaker 1: True.
Speaker 3: Okay, So this number fifteenth, twenty twenty, she's talking to
Speaker 3: the Legislative Audit Committee and they're having a hearing on
Speaker 3: election integrity and genesis. Voting systems are never connected to
Speaker 3: and cannot be accessed through the Internet because Wi Fi
Speaker 3: and Bluetooth capability are stripped from the unit before use,
Speaker 3: and all other connective technology is disabled by the trusted.
Speaker 2: Build Okay, So essentially they're not connected to the Internet.
Speaker 1: And what did you guys find?
Speaker 3: We found that through the purchase orders and through verifying
Speaker 3: it with Douglas County clerks. The voting systems used there,
Speaker 3: how are have Wi Fi remote access cards within them
Speaker 3: that can be activated or de activated. But it's very
Speaker 3: complicated to do that and connect to the Internet remotely.
Speaker 2: Okay, the possibility exists, though we have no we're not
Speaker 2: saying that it is uh is happening, correct, right, Okay?
Speaker 2: So what needs to happen to give you and therefore
Speaker 2: others more confidence that these machines cannot be hacked, because that's.
Speaker 1: What this is all about. Right.
Speaker 2: We've now had several hackers demonstrate with certain machines and
Speaker 2: other places how easy it is to hack into the system.
Speaker 2: We have not had that demonstration here in Colorado, but
Speaker 2: the possibility could exist, is that what we're.
Speaker 3: Saying absolutely, and we've been working with some really sophisticated
Speaker 3: smart people to figure out if this is accurate, if
Speaker 3: this is if it's if it's actually a possibility, if
Speaker 3: this happened, it's very possible. And so what needs to
Speaker 3: happen is they need to take the cards out of
Speaker 3: the machines. It's not real complicated. And Douglas County said, well,
Speaker 3: we can't do that. The Secretary of State has to
Speaker 3: talk to you about that. So we tried to set
Speaker 3: up a meeting and of course they didn't respond.
Speaker 2: So nobody I mean thing, it's such a small thing,
Speaker 2: and it's an insignificant thing that sounds like it would
Speaker 2: be really easy to take care of, and you just
Speaker 2: can't get any traction and even saying we should take
Speaker 2: care of this.
Speaker 3: Right anany What this comes down to is restoring trust
Speaker 3: with the voters. So Riswald misled the public, So fix it.
Speaker 3: So make sure that there aren't these cards in any
Speaker 3: of our voting systems. And we only looked at Douglas County.
Speaker 3: We did not look at other counties, but it's very
Speaker 3: likely or possible that they are in the other voting systems,
Speaker 3: and I would encourage everybody to ask your county clerks
Speaker 3: that question, or your county commissioner is that question, But
Speaker 3: it's the possibility, it's the rebuilding of trust. It's how
Speaker 3: we get people back on board with our elections and
Speaker 3: believing that they're the gold standard and not just gold.
Speaker 2: So the thing that gets me about this, and the
Speaker 2: reason why I think nothing is going to happen here, Heidi,
Speaker 2: is that the Democrats, they're like, there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 2: the election system. It's fine, there's nothing to see. So
Speaker 2: the only people that are like, yeah, we should probably
Speaker 2: make this secure seem to be from the right. And
Speaker 2: unfortunately in Colorado, the people on the right just don't
Speaker 2: matter very much to the Secretary of State.
Speaker 3: No, and I'm going to get called all kinds of names.
Speaker 3: I already am on Twitter. And a really frustrating thing
Speaker 3: that happened around the press conferences. We had nine Knews there,
Speaker 3: we had color of Public Radio, we had Fox thirty one.
Speaker 3: We had a contract writer I believe from the Denver Post,
Speaker 3: and not one of them covered the story. They were
Speaker 3: all there. They stayed for the entire conference, and none
Speaker 3: of them put a peep out about this.
Speaker 2: Like I said, people on the right don't matter in
Speaker 2: this state. And I mean, am I wrong? Because if
Speaker 2: there are a lot of people in this state who
Speaker 2: are concerned about election integrity, not because there's some kind
Speaker 2: of election denier, but they just want to know that
Speaker 2: their vote is not going to be canceled out by
Speaker 2: someone who is either dead. By the way, I have
Speaker 2: a story on the blog today about the new Jennia
Speaker 2: Griswold loss. She is now being forced to demonstrate that
Speaker 2: dead people or not registered to vote in Colorado. This
Speaker 2: should be such a nothing burger that it should have
Speaker 2: already been.
Speaker 1: Done, But she fought it.
Speaker 2: She fought just making sure that we don't have thirty
Speaker 2: thousand dead people on our voter rolls right now. I
Speaker 2: mean that should indicate to me that this woman shouldn't
Speaker 2: be in charge. It should be in my view, Heidi,
Speaker 2: if someone comes and says, we have a legitimate concern
Speaker 2: that this is happening, and can you take care of it,
Speaker 2: the answer should be yes. If this is going to
Speaker 2: make people trust our system more, yes, let's do it.
Speaker 2: You're not asking for like crazy expensive stuff here.
Speaker 3: No, and it's not even just Jenna. The clerks know
Speaker 3: what they're ordering when they order these machines. And just
Speaker 3: in September, Sarah McCaffey, who's the spokesperson for the Jeff
Speaker 3: co Kenny Clerk's office, said, no counting machines in Colorado
Speaker 3: are connected to the Internet. And also this is a
Speaker 3: bipartisan thing. Wayne Williams has said the same thing back
Speaker 3: in sixteen. He said, to start with, none of our
Speaker 3: tabulation software and none of our tabulation machines are connected
Speaker 3: to the Internet, so they cannot be hacked from the outside.
Speaker 3: And finally, in June of this year, Bobby growth masa
Speaker 3: County clerk, said, Mesa County ballot processing equipment is not
Speaker 3: connected to the Internet in any way. And I say,
Speaker 3: we don't know for sure in these other counties if
Speaker 3: it is or not, but it sure is. The spect
Speaker 3: of Douglas Counties is to check with the rest of
Speaker 3: the counties to make sure that they're not and these
Speaker 3: people are being accurate and truthful when they're talking about
Speaker 3: their voting systems.
Speaker 2: Well, so, Heidi, I'm glad. I wish that we were
Speaker 2: not so polarized in this state. You know, there have
Speaker 2: been a couple of things that have happened lately that
Speaker 2: made me realize that if you're on the right in
Speaker 2: Colorado and you have the nerve to sound the alarm
Speaker 2: about anything, whether it is the takeover of apartment buildings
Speaker 2: by a Venezuelan gang or the possibility of bad actors
Speaker 2: interfering in our election, the only thing I could say is,
Speaker 2: I hope, Heidi, and I can't believe I'm going to
Speaker 2: say this out loud. I hope that if some hardcore
Speaker 2: right wing computer hackers listen this, wouldn't it be funny
Speaker 2: if they hacked into the machines and all the Republicans
Speaker 2: won in the state. You better bet that election integrity
Speaker 2: would be at the top of the list for the
Speaker 2: Secretary of State.
Speaker 3: After that, Oh, tuche manny touche. And there's a couple
Speaker 3: other two key issues I can go over real quickly
Speaker 3: that sure goods that are important if you have time.
Speaker 3: Sure one is the post office. The post office gets
Speaker 3: undeliverable ballots back and it is their responsibility to report
Speaker 3: to the county Clerk's office how many there were, and
Speaker 3: they actually get paid for those. So they sent an invoice.
Speaker 3: A group that we work with, colorad and for an
Speaker 3: Institute for Fair Elections, did an audit of the Post
Speaker 3: Office invoices and most of them were incorrect. They did
Speaker 3: eleven counties and significantly incorrect and could not it couldn't
Speaker 3: be explained. There were over twelve thousand ballots that were
Speaker 3: just not accounted for. And so we've got to make
Speaker 3: sure that our accounting with the Post Office and the
Speaker 3: County Clerk's office is accurate and that it meets at
Speaker 3: least basic accounting stand which it doesn't right now. And
Speaker 3: then the third thing is the drop boxes. The way
Speaker 3: they monitor the drop boxes is silly. It's just plain silly.
Speaker 3: They use low definition cameras that cannot be admissible in
Speaker 3: court in most cases, and they point them in a
Speaker 3: direction where you can't actually see anything, and they record
Speaker 3: all this footage and they're supposed to be monitoring it
Speaker 3: for bad things happening, and they don't typically look at that.
Speaker 3: And so what we'd like to do is encourage citizens.
Speaker 3: And we fought the Secretary of State on this. We
Speaker 3: almost took her to a federal lawsuit over First Amendment rights.
Speaker 3: Citizens are allowed to observe those drop boxes, and there's
Speaker 3: certain guidelines you should use. You should never intimidate voters,
Speaker 3: but that's our right a citizens. So we're going to
Speaker 3: have more information about how people can do that to
Speaker 3: protect our drop boxes and make sure there's no bad
Speaker 3: actors dealings there.
Speaker 1: Okay, So there's a lot going on here.
Speaker 2: I wish that I thought anything would happen, but I
Speaker 2: just have no confidence in our politicized Secretary State's office.
Speaker 2: People need to understand that Jennack Groswald has been such an.
Speaker 1: Outlier for this position.
Speaker 2: She has been an absolute partisan hack in the one department, right,
Speaker 2: the one department where is critical for someone to at
Speaker 2: least give the appearance of impartiality, but she has done
Speaker 2: the exact opposite the entire time she's been in office.
Speaker 2: She should have been bounced out, but the hatred for
Speaker 2: Donald Trump was so big in this state and Republicans
Speaker 2: in general that she didn't get bounced out when she
Speaker 2: should have. So I'm glad that you're at least calling
Speaker 2: attention to this stuff, Heidi. I just don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of confidence that anything will happen because we are
Speaker 2: so thoroughly run by Democrats in this state, and they
Speaker 2: just don't care what we think.
Speaker 1: That's the reality.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately. I think you're right, Manny, But I'm tenacious, you
Speaker 3: know that. Yeah, they can call me names all they want.
Speaker 3: I'm going to keep on it and I'm going to
Speaker 3: make sure that this seeds the light of day and
Speaker 3: that voters understand what's happening and we can do better
Speaker 3: to protect our vote. That's all We're acting so that
Speaker 3: we can restore trust in our vote here in Colorado.
Speaker 1: I agree, HII and all.
Speaker 2: Thanks for everything you do, and we will talk to
Speaker 2: you again very soon.
Speaker 3: That's great, man, all right,