GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (CN) — Before a jury on Thursday, Colorado’s voting systems manager recalled feeling sick when he first saw Mesa County’s voting machine passwords posted online in August 2021.
Prosecutors called Jessi Romero, voting systems manager for the Colorado secretary of state, as a witness in their case against Tina Peters, Mesa County’s former clerk and recorder now on trial for charges related to helping leak voting machine data in 2021.
Prosecutors say that in May 2021, Peters instructed her deputy clerk to turn off security cameras and arranged for an associate to observe and photograph the voting machine trusted build, an update process conducted in person since the machines can’t connect to the Internet.
Peters then reportedly sent data and passwords to a Florida-based company for analysis and allowed them to be posted on the social media site Telegram by Ron Watkins, a key player in the QAnon conspiracy movement.
Romero recalled Thursday that someone initially suggested he look at a post on the Gateway Pundit website about election fraud.
“Initially I was honestly intrigued by it, because my thought was maybe there was something legitimate that we need to address,” Romero recalled. “Then I saw the picture with the passwords and I almost immediately got sick to my stomach because I knew what that was: it was the BIOS passwords for the Mesa County elections system.”
The basic operating systems passwords are required to operate the voting machines.
In April 2021, weeks ahead of a voting machine trusted build, Romero recalled denying a request from Mesa County asking to allow members of the public to attend the secure update process.
“The nature of the trusted build is of a security process rather than a public process,” Romero explained. Romero said the protocol had been particularly strict due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Romero instead suggested Mesa County let concerned members of the public watch security camera footage of the update process.
The leaked videos of Mesa County voting machines prompted two initial investigations, one from the secretary of state, and another from the 21st Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Cannon told the jury he initially looked for security footage but found the cameras had been turned off. Cannon checked a paper sign-in sheet as well as keycard logs and found a card assigned Gerald Wood had been used to access the machines during the trusted build. Cannon quickly determined Wood had not attended the update, and did not actually work for the county.
While searching Peters’ office, Cannon said he found a copy of the secretary of state’s recent request for help with the state investigation, along with a handwritten note that included the phrases “capture my BIOS passwords,” “Gateway Pundit,” “Lindell,” and “Crazy Monkey Z. Cannon assumed the latter was a misspelling of the online handle CodeMonkeyZ, used by QAnon actor Ron Watkins, who had posted the voting machine videos online.
Cannon said he called Peters to determine if she knew who had accessed the secure voting machine room. In response, Peters asked Cannon if the leak had been proven, and then told him she thought Jena Griswold, the Democratic Secretary of State was trying to frame her.
“The secretary of state has been trying to get me out of the office for a long time with that bogus stuff,” Cannon said Peters told him.
Asked if she knew who had recorded the voting machine update, Peters told Cannon she would look into it, but that she had a flight to catch to North Dakota.
On cross-examination, Peters’ defense attorney, Dan Hartman, asked Cannon about his stake in the outcome of the investigation.
“I seek the truth,” Cannon said.
Hartman also pressed Cannon on what crime he had believed he was investigating, since it had not yet been illegal in Colorado to photograph the voting machine update in 2021.
Many of Peters’ offenses were formally outlawed under the 2022 Internal Election Security Measures Act, which also bars anyone convicted of election offenses, sedition, insurrection, treason or conspiracy to overthrow the government from overseeing elections in Colorado.
Cannon told the court thought someone might have committed crimes of violation of official duties, eavesdropping, computer crimes and identity theft.
To date, Peters has been charged with three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant, four felony counts related to impersonation and identity theft and three misdemeanor counts for official misconduct, violating her duties and failing to comply with the secretary of state’s requirements.
21st judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett, appointed by Democratic Governor Jared Polis, is presiding over the case, which is scheduled to run through Aug. 12.