ENDORSEMENT: Voters should send Griswold back to lead the war against election disinformation

Take exception all you want to Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jenna Griswold’s secure-election tactics.

The first-term, top state election official’s full-steam-ahead media pushback against election deniers, and people admittedly trying to undermine state elections, Griswold is at the front of the parade to undo damage to voter confidence.

Voters should keep her in office for the next term to safeguard a state few would ever think needs election integrity protection.

While the office is actually a demanding mix of many disparate jobs, gambling oversight, business documentation as well as numerous election-related mandates, job one for the office, sadly, is fighting rampant disinformation, protecting the lives of election workers and acting as police against nefarious election insiders.

The Sentinel stands with Griswold and others like her in calling out election deniers and those who passively or passionately distribute disinformation about election integrity in the state. Those who partake even in passing along coyness such as, “well, everyone has questions,” have not a single reason to doubt Colorado’s election security.

There is not one piece of evidence anywhere to suggest that elections here have been compromised by widespread or insidious fraud.  Nothing.

What does create a risk to Colorado election integrity is baselessly doubting the process based on a flood of disinformation, mostly coming from corrupt Republicans such as Donald Trump and indicted Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who have actively attempted to interfere in the election process, according to court records and witness testimony.

In Trump’s case, the former president tried to undermine and overthrow the presidential election in an effort to overrule voters and appoint himself president. 

They selfishly do the bidding of Russia and China, which experts say purposely work to distress the united part of the states here, weakening America’s global stature.

While her critics have labeled Griswold’s work partisan, we have not seen any evidence of  anything more partisan about Griswold’s tenure and decisions than those of the Republican secretaries of state widely accused of partisanship before her.

This week, it was Griswold’s office that came forward with the mistake about mailing voter registration advisement notices to 30,000 ineligible potential voters. The glitch was regrettable, verifiable and hardly partisan or nefarious. 

Likewise, her opponent, former Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder Pam Anderson has been accused of secretly siding with Republican extremists and deniers, because they’re Republicans, too. 

There’s no proof of any such thing. Anderson has been consistent and relentless in calling out election deniers among her own party.

She’s in a perfect position to bring fellow Republicans back from the edge when they buy into the election fraud hoax. As clerk of one of the state’s largest counties, she knows firsthand how much security, transparency and accountability is built into the election system at the ground level. As a Republican, she holds a unique position of credibility in being able to help fellow Republicans find their way back from the depths of denialism.

If elected, Anderson would clearly make a trusted and effective secretary of state.

But she cannot match Griswold’s passion for outwardly undermining attempts by state and national officials to cast doubt on election integrity, or worse yet, actively undermine it in the way Trump and officials in other states have tried, and still more want to.

The Sentinel last month criticized Griswold for appearing in a TV ad with her former Republican opponent in an effort to shore up election mistrust, mostly among Colorado Republicans. The ad was paid for by a federal program. It’s debatable how impactful the brief spot was, and it undermined Griswold’s goal of putting Colorado elections above the political fray by inviting controversy and criticism about the appearance of impropriety — opportunistically promoting herself along with her cause using tax dollars — and becoming an inadvertent distraction. We stand by that and advise Griswold to protect her ability to lead the fight against election disruption by previewing her actions through the eyes of her opponents.

Despite that cursory misstep, Griswold has fiercely and laudably worked to undue efforts to cast doubt or actively undermine election integrity in Colorado and across the nation.

And that’s what the job calls for right now. Voters should return Griswold to office.