DENVER — Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Thursday implemented emergency rules aimed at thwarting future efforts at an Arizona-style “forensic audit” conducted by a third party.
The new rules ban county clerks from allowing access to voting machines unless that person has passed a background check and is performing a task with authorization from either the county clerk or Griswold’s office.
The rules also require that person to be either an employee of the county clerk’s office or Griswold’s office, an election judge or an employee of a company that provides voting machines to that county. Voting machine manufacturers often make employees available to service and update machines.
Those rules would block third parties, such as the Cyber Ninjas firm brought in by Republicans in the Arizona state Senate, from accessing voting machines.