For a long time, Lynn Bartels was among the most politically in-the-know people in Colorado because she covered politics as a journalist.
Now she's among the most politically in-the-know people in Colorado because she's the spokesperson for Colorado Secretary of State Wayne Williams.
And she's had it with Donald Trump talking about a rigged election.
Here's the body of an email she sent to local press:
Donald Trump has been tweeting about elections being rigged, but he offers no evidence of such. I can say on Twitter I’m a super model but that doesn’t make it so.
I follow Donald Trump on Twitter and I don’t recall him saying the polling places and the elections were rigged when he was winning one primary election after another.
He claims that the elections also are being rigged at many “polling places.” Colorado is a mail-ballot state. In 2014, only 5 percent of the votes came from a Voter Service and Polling Center. The other 95 percent came from mail ballots. The county clerks have extensive checks and balances in place in scanning the mail ballots.
I think this might be the biggest proof of all: Former Secretary of State Scott Gessler ran for governor in 2014 and came in third in the Republican primary. If you really can rig the system, how come he didn’t win?
None of Colorado’s 64 counties have voting machines that are connected to the Internet. The voter registration system is connected to the Internet but we do all sorts of testing – and this was long before the fears were raised for this election – to ensure it is secure. When we are alerted about possible hacking attempts, we block those IP addresses. We are coordinating with the Department of Homeland Security, the FBI, the Governor’s Office of Information Technology and county IT staff.
The Colorado Secretary of State’s office is considered a leader when it comes to IT security. As an example, the IT department sends out “phishing tests” to staffers to see if we open links before checking to see where they are coming from. New employees go through a lengthy e-learning module on everything from passwords to suspicious behavior.
Bartels added in an email to Denverite, "I'd point out that many of our clerks are Republican and the idea that they are in it to help Hillary – or Donald – win is insane. Clerks don’t pray for winners and losers but large margins of victories so there are no recounts!"
She has since been engaging on Twitter on the subject.
