On Friday, September 20, an unauthorized person entered the Archuleta County Election Office ‘counting room’, in the basement of the old County Courthouse.
The room contains the computerized Dominion Voting Systems equipment used to tally the election ballots.
The old downtown Courthouse on San Juan Street (Highway 160) no longer belongs to the County government, having been sold for $550,000 in January 2023 to a private company. (It is currently for sale again, priced at approximately $6 million.)
Archuleta County Clerk & Recorder Kristy Archuleta, who’s office is responsible for conducting elections in the county, and for election security, explained the situation to the Daily Post.
The unauthorized intruder was reportedly an employee of the building owner.
“Apparently, he was looking for a shovel or something? And he said he didn’t know that the room was off limits, even though it had a keypad entrance, and we had told him before that that room was the ‘counting room’.
“On Tuesday, a clerk from another county stopped by for a visit, and I was giving them a tour… and when we got over to the counting room, I said, ‘Ummm, that door does not look right.’ So I called our maintenance supervisor, and I had him come down and secure the door. I contacted the Secretary of State’s office, Dominion, and law enforcement. The maintenance supervisor contacted the County Manager [Jack Harper] and I had a conversation with Commissioner [Ron] Maez.
“Commissioner Maez tried to get a hold of the owner of the building. The maintenance supervisor contacted the groundskeeper for the building and asked him about the door. He initially said he was not in the room. But my staff was looking at the surveillance video, and it was marked on the surveillance when someone entered the room, and we were able to verify that he didn’t touch the equipment. He was in the room for less than a minute. He opened the door, looked around, and walked out.
“So we were able to verify that our seals were still intact, and we did a hash value on the ‘trusted build’, and we were able to verify that absolutely nothing had been touched, or changed. So our equipment is still certified.
“I was very, very stressed when I looked at the door…”
Considering, of course, how close we are to the 2024 election.
“If that equipment had been touched, we would had to send the equipment off to have a new ‘trusted build’ performed on it. Or else Dominion and the Secretary of State would have had to come down here to perform the ‘trusted build’. So we were very thankful. We had the Sheriff’s Office and the Town Police Department involved.
“After everything that happened, the equipment is fine. It’s still certified. We followed all the protocols and checks required, to ensure that our equipment was still intact and still certified. So we are good to go.”
Apparently, the unauthorized person who entered the room claimed he had used a key to enter the room, but according to Ms. Archuleta, the keypad was “totally mangled.”
“But reviewing the video, we could see it was nothing like an attempt to undermine the election process… I was so thankful that our equipment and everything was still good.”
She noted that the election areas are “protected by law.” No unauthorized persons are allowed in the election office or the ‘counting room’.
“We are very strict about who has access to those areas. So myself and my assistant are the only ones who have the cards to get into the keypads. And we have a backup key, in case the electricity is out.
“So definitely an unfortunate incident, but… I mean… considering how bad it could have been, it couldn’t have gone any better for us.”
She didn’t mention whether the unauthorized person had been disciplined.
And I didn’t ask.