Election deniers inundate Colorado county clerks with unprecedented number of information requests; One clerk calls it 'morale killer'
As Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder George Stern's staff is gearing up for the Nov. 8 midterm election, he says his office is being hamstrung by dozens of new open records act requests seeking detailed information about the 2020 election, nearly two years ago.
"It's a huge distraction and morale killer eight weeks before a very important election," Stern said. "He says he is obligated to respond and fulfill the Colorado Open Records Act requests but calls it frustrating that some are consuming valuable staff time, trying to litigate the 2020 election, which he says was free and fair. Of 380,000 votes cast in El Paso County in the 2020 election, Stern says he is aware of one potential case of attempted fraud.
"We've received CORA (Colorado Open Records Act) requests — about 15 — in a matter of a few days, all copy and pasted. This is a coordinated effort by somebody," Stern said.
The requests typically ask for a dozen or more obscure pieces of 2020 election, information such as undervotes, overvotes, mark density and cast vote records. Some of the requests demand Stern's office preserve 2020 election records as the requestor indicates they may sue his office over unspecified 2020 election fraud.
"Staff members are exhausted from all this," Stern explained. "It's a drain." Stern, a Democrat, continued, saying, " We're seeing this all over the state in big counties, small counties, counties that are left and counties that are right. All clerks are facing it."
In El Paso County, Republican Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman confirmed he too has been flooded with similar requests.
"They have a view of elections, and they're looking for information to confirm what they believe about elections."
Broerman said his office is receiving between 10 and 20 requests a week for information about the 2020 election, gobbling up valuable staff time as they prepare for the November election. He said the CORA requests became so burdensome, his office hired a temp worker at a cost of about $30,000 to help out.
"Our taxpayers, the citizens of El Paso County pay for that," said Broerman, who maintained the 2020 election was accurate and fair. "It's very frustrating to see people not believing that."
CBS News Colorado attempted to speak with those filing the open records act requests. Most did not respond to calls or emails; some said they didn't want to talk about their requests.
Tony Rambo was different.
"I'm an election denier," Rambo conceded.
The Westminster resident filed open records requests last month about the 2020 elections with every one of Colorado's 64 counties. He said it took him about five to six hours.
"There was massive fraud', said Rambo, a 54-year-old construction supervisor. "The 2020 election was rigged. This is much bigger than some crazy conspiracy theorist trying to change the world. This has to be exposed."
Rambo said about 40 to 45 counties responded to his copy and paste open records act requests.
Asked where he got the idea to send the requests in and how he knew what to ask for, he said it was all outlined by Trump ally and election denier Mike Lindell in an August symposium that was streamed live.
Rambo said he was provided a blueprint of what to ask for and copy and pasted an email to county after county.
Asked if he knew what "counting group" and "mark density" were, which were included in his requests, he said, "I have no clue. We were just doing the legwork." He said he forwarded the responses from the Colorado counties to Lindell's staff for analysis.
"I don't necessarily accuse any of these county election officials of cheating. This was all on a bigger scale. This was all done through the Dominion voting machines," Rambo said.
Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said people like Rambo, "... are being used by grifters and bad actors." Crane said one Colorado county had received 87 open records requests related to the 2020 election since the Lindell event in August.
"They want to cause chaos, confusion and have people make mistakes," Crane said. He also explained Mike Lindell could ask for and receive the same information, rather than unleashing thousands of followers on clerk and recorder offices filing identical requests. "It's disgraceful what they're doing," Crane said.
For smaller Colorado counties, Crane said with minimal resources, the 2020 requests are "overwhelming for them." Crane said what's happening in Colorado is being repeated in election offices across the country.
Rambo said he didn't want to inconvenience election officials and their staffs, but, "As an American, I have to think the bigger threat is solving this election fraud."
