No criminal charges will be filed in Colorado election passwords leak, Denver DA says

The Denver District Legal professional’s Workplace won’t file prison costs associated to the inadvertent launch of some voting system passwords by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Workplace, prosecutors introduced Friday.

In a press release, District Legal professional Beth McCann mentioned the discharge of the passwords, which have been posted on the secretary of state’s web site for a number of months beginning in June, was not “an effort to affect the result of an election.” As an alternative, she wrote, the passwords launch was an error that didn’t represent a violation of regulation.

A regulation agency employed by Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s workplace beforehand decided that the passwords’ launch was inadvertent, although the overview discovered that the workplace violated data safety insurance policies.

The passwords have been included in a hidden tab on a bigger spreadsheet by a staffer who left Griswold’s workplace in Might 2023, the agency’s overview discovered. Present employees members weren’t conscious of the hidden tab after they printed the spreadsheet on-line a yr later.

In a separate assertion Friday, Griswold’s workplace reiterated McCann’s findings and mentioned that it had cooperated with the Denver investigation. Spokesman Jack Todd declined to remark additional.

McCann’s workplace opened the investigation in November, shortly after the Colorado Republican Celebration introduced in late October the invention of the spreadsheet containing hidden passwords, which might be publicly downloaded.

There was no proof indicating the passwords have been used to change or intrude with election outcomes, nor has any proof steered that elections techniques have been compromised. Anybody looking for to take action would’ve wanted one other set of passwords in addition to bodily entry to managed, camera-monitored areas in county clerks’ places of work.

In accordance with a 26-page report issued by McCann’s workplace, investigators spoke with a number of present and former state staff and in addition reviewed staff’ laptops and e mail accounts.