As Trump threatens election interference, Colorado clerks prepare like never before

During the June 30 primary election in Colorado, Lori Mitchell, the Chaffee County clerk, planned with other local officials for disaster scenarios as the threat of wildfire loomed. It turns out the planning they did is useful now for the general election, she said, as another potential disaster approaches, the source of which is entirely human: the Trump administration.

That a disaster like a wildfire is comparable to the administration’s efforts to undermine the election says a lot about the state of democracy in America.

“Election officials are always thinking about the worst possible thing that could happen,” Molly Fitzpatrick, the clerk in Boulder County, said Tuesday. “Historically, that has been flood, fire, mass protest scenarios — we have added federal interference to the list.”

Fitzpatrick was speaking during a media tour of a ballot processing facility, and her message echoed recent assurances from both Democratic and Republican election officials in the state. It might be hard to swallow that an American president is one of the worst possible things that could happen to an American election, but those officials are telling voters that despite federal malfeasance, they’re confident they can defend democracy. 

Warnings of disaster are everywhere. The Trump administration last year sued Colorado to obtain sensitive voter data, a move state officials viewed as election interference and which they successfully rebuffed. Trump’s executive order that would have allowed him to meddle with mail ballot systems threatened to severely hurt the handful of universal mail-ballot states like Colorado before the U.S. Supreme Court stepped in. 

Colorado was 1 of 15 states flagged by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for “election integrity” monitoring ahead of the June primary, which Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold said was part of the administration’s “hostility” to the state. The administration plans to send election monitors into a toss-up district in Colorado, an encroachment the state’s top Democrats view as a “bad-faith” form of interference. 

Earlier this year, Todd Lyons, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said ominously in a letter to Griswold about ICE at polling places that the agency plays “an important role in investigating voter fraud, and will continue to perform this vital mission.”

Beyond Colorado, Trump and MAGA-world rhetoric suggests other ways Trump could meddle with elections, such as deployment of military members to polling places, invocation of the Insurrection Act, and seizure of ballots and election machines.

Mitchell, a Democrat, has worked with her county attorney to prepare in case federal agents attempt to seize election material.

“We know that the threat is out there. We’ve prepared for it the best we could, about how if they show up we have a protocol for checking the credentials, checking what they’re asking for, this and that, and just make sure we’re following the law.”

Mitchell was first elected clerk in 2014. Threats to elections this year raise concerns like never before, she said.

“It’s very concerning,” she said. “Because some of our most dangerous times are not during the election time, it’s right after … Some of the scarier times are right after the election.”

She has shared this insight with local emergency personnel and law enforcement, who have talked to Chaffee election judges this year for the first time, to help provide some comfort.

“This is a whole new ball game,” Mitchell said. “This is a whole level of desperation that is, I think, very scary.”

Bobbie Gross, the Republican clerk in Mesa County, took the extra step this year of hiring third-party security services to be deployed at the county’s main elections facility, a precaution she also took for the 2024 election.

Gross is confident the rule of law will prevail.

“We do hear the talk out on the streets, and I’m thankful that the judicial system has worked very well, and I think that the federal government doesn’t have the authority to do a lot of things they’re contemplating or putting out there that they might do. The law’s not really on their side for that,” Gross said.

Election denier Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk who went to prison for her role in an election security breach in her own office, met with Trump earlier this month to discuss “election integrity” plans. Her lawyer, Peter Ticktin, later suggested those plans could involve the seizure of ballots, and he gameplanned “civil war.”

“That wouldn’t be too successful in Weld County,” said Carly Koppes, a Republican who serves as clerk in conservative Weld County and is the president of the Colorado County Clerks Association. She monitors administration election rhetoric.

“At this point they’re throwing anything and everything at the wall, and they’re just trying to see what’s going to stick and what’s going to cause the most noise in this election,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a whole lot of oomph behind it.”

But she and other clerks around the state are preparing for contingencies. They’ve had training on what an FBI badge looks like, and what a subpoena and warrant looks like. They’ve coordinated with Griswold’s office and local law enforcement to respond to emergencies.

“This is all about, at the end of the day, communication, and that’s one of the greatest strengths of the clerks here in Colorado, is we communicate. We talk to each other.” she said. “That’s what makes us so strong.”

Election administration in Colorado is spread across offices in the state’s 64 counties. Whatever attempts Trump makes next week to reverse results he doesn’t like, the clerks in those offices will be on the front lines. They’ve prepared for disasters before. Now they’re preparing for whatever disaster the country’s own president might throw at them.