Former Colorado Secretary of State reacts to election systems password breach

DENVER (KDVR) — Fallout from a breach involving passwords tied to Colorado's election system being exposed online continued Thursday, with Gov. Jared Polis now stepping in to help provide resources.

Secretary of State Jena Griswold's predecessor weighed in on the matter on Thursday.

Former Secretary of State Wayne Williams said not making this breach public sooner was a "huge mistake" by Griswold. He shared some thoughts about what he thinks should happen next.

“I believe this was a mistake, I don’t believe it wasn’t intentional release. But once you learn about that, you have to take every action possible to immediately correct the situation. And that’s what the secretary did not do," Williams said.

The former Secretary of State stopped short of asking his successor Jena Griswold to resign, but he expressed concerns about the secretary's failure to notify county clerks about the situation.

"By not informing the county clerks, we continued in a situation for a week without addressing the actual issue, which is BIOS passwords, complete bios, passwords, not partial passwords, were released and available and could have been used to compromise equipment. Now, there are a number of precautions we have in Colorado to protect against that," Williams said.

Williams suggested that the state start by checking out election computers from each of the affected counties.

"Examine each of the computers that were affected to determine whether the BIOS was changed. You then have to change the password obviously, so that it cannot be changed in the future. If any of the machines do show some signs of a change to the bios, then you have to go in, reinstall completely and start over and that county needs to re-tabulate," said Williams.

Attorneys for the Trump campaign are asking for more; demanding the Secretary of State's Office follow a list of steps to maintain election integrity. The firm representing the Trump campaign is led by Wayne Williams' predecessor Scott Gessler. News of the breach was broken by Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams. Despite all the connections, Williams said the concerns are not political.

"The concerns are valid. If you go back and look at the Tina Peters situation at that time, the Secretary of State said that if the BIOS was released, that end of itself was a serious issue. The BIOS was released, that's a serious issue," said Williams.

FOX31 reached out to the Secretary of State's Office about the letter from the Trump campaign. They said the office will formally respond to those requests before sharing any additional information.