Colorado elections workers crisscrossed the state over the past week to update voting-machine logins after their secret passwords were accidentally posted online for several months.
State officials said they were confident no one tampered with the machines after discovering the password breach and that votes would be safe. But they still scrambled to fix the leak, identified Oct. 24.
“Colorado’s elections are safe and Coloradans will have their voices heard on Election Day ,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said in a Monday statement . “I am regretful for this error. I am dedicated to making sure we address this matter fully and that mistakes of this nature never happen again.”
Passwords on voting systems in Colorado were exposed beginning on June 21, when a spreadsheet on the Colorado Department of State website included “ partial passwords to certain components of Colorado voting systems. ”
The mistake went unnoticed until Oct. 24 and the machines were not compromised by the leak, because the passwords were one of several layers of security, according to a Nov. 4 Colorado Department of State news release . “No settings had been changed on any impacted active voting equipment,” the state confirmed, after updating the password on machines in 34 of Colorado’s 64 counties.