Thread by @DenverChannel

Watch live: Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold is providing information about #ElectionDay in Colorado, including the latest on ballot returns. 🗳 🇺🇸

Watch: thedenverchannel.com/live2

Secretary of State Jena Griswold starts off. She says Colorado is the nation’s gold standard for voting. She just got the new numbers in and 76.6% of active registered voters have voted, which is really high.

As of 10 a.m. today, we surpassed 2016 turnout. Colorado has already set the bar and can continue throughout the day. Griswold says Colorado’s model sets a national standard.

Of course, #COVID19 has made this year different, though in terms of elections, much is the same for Colorado. Most Coloradans will continue to mail ballots and they wanted to make it even more accessible this year. They increased drop boxes by 50%.

They also increased voting centers to 340 open this election. They made sure to have PPE for election workers. They also introduced the new initiative for ballot tracking. Important: ballots must be received by 7 p.m. so get in line before then or use a drop box by 7 p.m.

Now, Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder George Stern discusses how #ElectionDay is going for them. He says they’re seeing record turnout and they’re leading the pack on ballots for most of early voting. He says 79% of active registered voters have turned in their ballots, 70%...

... in 2016, but they’d love to see it at 100%. He says they have twice as many drop boxes than they did two years ago. Anyone needing additional support can go to an in-person vote center. He says we’ll likely have results tonight, but they have nine days for ballots to come in.

On to questions, the first about voting safety today. Griswold says Colorado is the safest place to vote because paper voting and most Coloradans voting by mail. Also, equipment in person is not connected to the internet.

In regards to #COVID19, they’re following public health guidelines, social distancing, sanitizing equipment and wearing masks. Griswold says Coloradans should feel confident.

Stern jumps in and says everything in their facility is done by teams of election judges who’vr gone through background checks. They’re picking up ballots from drop boxes, verifying signatures and all of it is on surveillance and it’s open to watchers from both political parties.

In Jeffco, they even have outdoor sites at their busiest locations, large tents in the parking lots to give voters extra space to vote on a beautiful Colorado day.

The next question digs in further on safety from a physical and cyber standpoint. Griswold says they’re monitoring everything closely and so far all is well. Because so much of it is done by paper ballots, that helps. They’re happy to be joined by the National Guard.

They’ve worked with them for several years. Everything is quiet in a cyber front, but Coloradans should be alert of disinformation that will likely increase today and over the coming days. In regards to physical security, they did have one issue yesterday.

Two men dressed in military clothes were filming voters at a drop box, one man with open carry. Police came out and the observers left. That incident will be investigated. Stern says no voter intimidation has happened so far in Jeffco.

Griswold says they expect to report 70-80% of ballots cast tonight, but of course, nothing will be official tonight because they still need to receive votes from military overseas and have signature discrepancies fixed.

She says their team is speaking with DHS all the fine. They also have FBI representatives at the office right now to help with monitoring. So far, nothing has popped up. There have been stories across the country of misinformation, like mail snippets and robocalls.

The next question is how difficult it is to prove voter intimidation and how they approach the cases. Griswold says the basic of the law is that people cannot impede someone from voting, whether it’s physical or making someone feeling unsafe.

Things like filming someone, not wearing a mask and open carry may, alone, not constitute voter intimidation, but combining altogether could potentially be considered voter intimidation. It will be up to police and prosecutors to review and make a determination.

Griswold finishes up saying things are going smoothly. Stern hopes the few remaining voters get there ballots in by 7 p.m. this evening.