Passwords to Colorado's voting machines have reportedly been online for months after state officials said that they were published accidentally.
The discovery was shared in a mass email Tuesday from Colorado Republican Party Vice Chair Hope Scheppelman. An affidavit included in the email claimed that an unidentified person downloaded a spreadsheet from the Secretary of State's website, which included the passwords, as reported by KUSA.
Secretary of State Jena Griswold said that the "partial" passwords, which are believed to have been online since June, are not enough to access voting machines on their own, as reported by CPR News.
"There are two passwords to get into any voting component, along with physical access. We have layers of security, and out of just an abundance of caution, have staff in the field changing passwords, looking at access logs and looking at the entire situation and continuing our investigation," Griswold told KUSA.
Griswold added that the employee responsible no longer works for the state.
"What we need to do right now is own the issue, explain the issue, remediate the issue, which is exactly what we're doing," she told CPR News. "I do think the public deserves to know what happened, but right now we just have to resolve it and make sure folks know the impact as a voter."
Griswold said initial investigations appear to point to the situation as an accident, however a personnel audit is still ongoing. She said she does not believe there are security threats to the state's elections.
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