TRANSCRIPT OF JENA GRISWOLD’S ZOOM CALL TO "INDIVISIBLE"

Aug 6, 2025
(Absurd Statements Highlighted in RED, and Underlined for extra attention to
absurdity, although most everything she said is absurd)

Thank you Robin, thank you Christine for all your work organizing Indivisible and thank
you to everybody who's joining us tonight. I really appreciate it. I'm Jenna Griswold,
Colorado Secretary of State and it's great to be with you all today and to see so much
enthusiasm about protecting our elections.

Since Donald Trump took office again we have seen the bedrock principles of our
democracy and the rule of law pushed to the brink. Trump abuses our legal system
and undermines the Constitution almost every single day. Since taking office he
pardoned the January 6th insurrectionists, people who stormed the Capitol to try to
steal the presidency from the American people.

He dismantled the FBI's task force on foreign interference and the Department of
Homeland Security's task force on foreign disinformation and fired many of the
people at the Department of Homeland Security who helped protect the nation's
elections. He has unlawfully attempted to interfere in state-run elections through
executive order. He's Weaponized the Department of Justice to investigate political
enemies and to try to attempt to release Tina Peters who compromised her own
voting equipment here in Colorado and was sentenced to nine years of
incarceration.
And Trump has even allegedly sent political operatives to try to explore gaining
access to county election equipment right here in Colorado. His strategy is to wear
us down, silence us, overwhelm us, and make the American people give up. But it
will not work and it is not working.

Trump thinks he's above the law. Well, he's not. And his unlawfulness will not
prevail.

We cannot let these brazen attempts to grab power go unchecked and it's time to
fight back and fight back now. There are three things we need to do. First, stop
Trump in the courts.

We must hold him accountable for his unlawful and unconstitutional actions.
Second, mobilize and stand together. He's afraid of you organizing and of your
voice, so please do not stop.

And third, beat MAGA. Vote for our civil rights, our democracy, and our country.
We cannot accept their attempts to take us backwards.

Colorado is ready to fight back and we are all fighting back. As Secretary of State,
I've led efforts to make Colorado's elections more accessible and secure for all
voters by increasing drop boxes by 70%, adding voting centers and guaranteeing
voting access on every public college and on tribal lands. We've passed parole re-
enfranchisement and automatic voter registration, which has registered nearly
800,000 new voters since 2020.

We made it a crime to threaten election workers, a crime to have guns close to voting,
and a crime to try to steal elections with fake electors schemes. And this year I was happy
to work with our legislature on the Colorado Voting Rights Act, which enshrines federal
voter protection laws into state law, ensures up our laws so voters can challenge
discriminatory voting practices at the state level.

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But there will always be a way to fight against laws or practices that would lead to voter
suppression. And Colorado has joined 18 other states in filing a federal lawsuit
against Trump's unlawful executive order targeting our elections. We are holding
the line.

The fact of it is, is that Trump is mad about Tina Peters, he's mad that Colorado has
great elections, and we're making sure that every voter has their voice heard in safe
and secure elections. Look, when it comes to Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk
who breached her own election security to try and improve the big lie, I made sure
she was held accountable. When she compromised her voting equipment, I removed
her from election oversight.
And now she's serving nine years in prison for her actions. County clerks are holding
the line too. When approached by a Trump crony who wanted them, who asked them to
allow an unauthorized third party access to voting equipment, they told that person to
back off and know that's not legal in the state of Colorado.

I'm really proud of the clerks for holding the line. And I really am proud of all of you
guys for staying engaged in our democracy through this tough time. There are things you
all can do.

Make sure you're calling your representatives in Congress, urging them to fight bills that
would hurt our right to vote, and to hold Trump accountable for the damage he's
doing. Support our democracy directly by working with your county clerk's office as an
election judge or a poll worker. And if you're eligible, make sure you're registered to
vote.

You can do that at govotecolorado.gov. Use your voice at demonstrations at the Capitol
about laws that are being introduced on social media. However, you can't make it clear
that we will not stand by quietly while Trump tries to bulldoze our democracy. We will
win this fight.

It's about the future of our nation and our state. And I'm so glad you guys are involved.
So thank you.

Thank you again, Robin. And I will pass it back to you. So at this point, you know, I just
want to remind folks that we have needed everyone on the call.

And we're hoping that when you send a chat, we're hoping that it's going to Marianne, are
you seeing chats? I'm sorry, Christine, are you seeing chats? No, any questions? Okay,
yeah, no questions have come to me. Well, let me ask one. Well, we kind of figured that
out in the background.

Yes, one that comes to my mind. You know, I never wrote. I feel like we are all fairly
comfortable and confident with the ability to protect votes in Colorado for all the reasons
that you've just shared.

I myself am worried about what other states like Texas are doing right now.

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What they're doing and how that affects the rest of the country and if there are other if
there are ways that other states like Colorado can fight back against that Thank you for
that question. I think it's clear that what Texas is proposing is an extreme mega power
grab now Coloradans made their voice clear in 2018 that we're districting should be
conducted by an independent commission and enshrined that process and requirements
into the Constitution Ultimately to the extent that other states have avenues to push back
against Trump's flagrant effort to gerrymandered her the congressional map They
absolutely should Okay, I'm sorry. Are you guys receiving questions? No, but I do have
one though.

Okay, so yeah, so I know you talked a little bit about protecting from cyber threats, but Is
there going concern with foreign interference or can you talk a little bit more how we're
protected against that? Colorado has some of the best elections in the nation and
remember we have many protections in place But one of the key protections is that
when you vote in Colorado, you're voting on a piece of paper Your mail ballot is a
piece of paper of course signatures are verified to make sure that the person who Is
voting is the correct person up of guardrails there. But overall, you know previously
we would work with the Department of Homeland Security I on our cyber security of
Election support system. So not the actual boat not where folks are voting but the support
systems And I will tell you that Colorado will have secure elections in 2026 The
nation will have secure elections in 2026 But that's not because of Donald Trump
because he has made our elections less secure since taking office So the FBI used to
work on Foreign election interference. Well that work he put to an end the Department of
Homeland Security used to work on foreign Disinformation that work he has put to an
end And I mentioned in my remarks a lot of the folks that we used to work with I at the
county level on physical security Are no longer there or on our cyber security.

They've been fired So my office is taking over some of the programming that the
Department of Homeland Security used to do for example physical security checks of the
county offices We ran a an emergency budget a supplemental budget. I Question this last
legislative session to make sure we were stepping in I'm confident in our elections But I
think anybody who tells you they care about election security and then disbands The
efforts of the federal government to stop foreign election interference is not really
concerned about election security So we are holding the line But overall just like every
aspect of what Trump touch touches he's trying to destabilize He's trying to inject
chaos in our elections. That's ultimately what the big lie is all about by the way It's
to undermine confidence provide Justification to pass voter suppression laws.

It's incited violence against election workers here in Colorado We've actually seen
thirty nine percent of a county clerk step down since 2020 in a large part It's
because of the threat environment which the big lie really it incentivizes

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We need good people, to help pull the line. That's like I said, make sure your county clerk
has the election workers they need. Make sure that you're being extremely kind to them
because they're doing a really good job in a very hard atmosphere. Okay.

Good. Okay. Good. Well, now questions are coming in kinda like a fire hose. I'm trying
to read them all and get to them.
I'm not sure if it's the same way for Robin. You guys can send questions to Robin too. So
we were you were talking, about an intern program or future candidates? I'm trying to
read this. Is that a question about an internship program?

Internships. Yes. Oh, we do have a paid internship program in this office. It can make
sure to circulate information, to the organizers about that. Great.

Okay. And, another question from Cindy. What is the best way to encourage people to
vote? I know it's easy in Colorado, but what do you think? Yeah.

I think it depends on whether that question is about in Colorado or nationally. But we do

have some of the highest percentage of active, or of eligible people registered, and
then we have some of the highest turnout rates in the nation. Just this last election,
we had a nearly 80% turnout of active voters, which is pretty good. I've worked, with,
gosh, our legislature and stakeholders to make sure that we are opening up access while
increasing our security. And I I'm really proud of that.

So for example, back in 2019, we sat down with both of the tribes, tribal leadership in
Colorado to try to reverse the historical voter suppression, that was still, being witnessed
in the laws for folks voting on tribal lands. We passed new laws with the tribal, tribal
chairman, making sure there were drop boxes, on person voting centers, early voting,
the whole gamut of things accessible on tribal land. So we're continuing to make sure
there's access. I think in Colorado, making sure that people know how to register, they
can register at govotecolorado.gov. They can also go to the Colorado Secretary of State's
website to find a lot of, answers to any questions or, of course, call their county clerks
who want to help.

I think it's really important for all of us who have friends in other states to make sure, to
talk about the fact that voting in many states has changed since 2020. Look. Trump did
start to push the big lie, before the insurrection and after it, and it has been used to
justify voter suppression laws. So how someone, you know, the laws about voting in
Georgia, for example, in 2026 are gonna be different than they were in 2020. So making
sure that folks across the nation understand what it means to be registered and how to cast
their ballot, I think, is really important.

And all of us can be part of that work. I also think it's really (text lost)

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The reason that the far right lies about our elections is to try to undermine
confidence and pretend like there's not facts. But there are facts. There is truth, and we
need to make sure that people who, you know, may just not know have good information.
So making sure to counter this information, sharing accurate information is something
that every single one of us can do, in, you know, honestly makes a huge difference.
Great.

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Do you have time for a real quick one? This one's great.

How can we support our poll stations and how can we get involved in the collection,
counting, verification, and how what how can we help? Yeah. That's a great question. So
if you wanna be an election worker and you're affiliated with a political party, tell the
chair of your county political party. So if you're a Republican, tell the chair of the
Republican County Party.

And if you're a Democrat, tell the Democratic, County Party leadership, and they'll send a
list to the county clerk. Now if you're unaffiliated, just go directly to your county clerk.
Let them know that you're interested, and we need to make sure we have enough election
workers in Colorado. So far, you know, since 2020, there's always some regions where
we need a little bit more help, but we have not seen, the drastic, you know, limitations on
election workers like some other states. So that just shows that Coloradans are willing to
exercise their civic duty and sign up and make sure that there's that bipartisan oversight
over every step of the elections, which we have here in Colorado.

Now another thing that will always help your county clerks is, voting early, during
early voting. Because ultimately, when we have these big elections, a presidential or
a general election, a lot of people wanna hold their mail ballots until the very last
day. And then it's a lot of work to start processing those ballots. And if the clerks get
your voted ballot earlier, they can start processing them and have results quicker.
So that's an another thing, but I'll let, I know Molly Fitzpatrick, the wonderful county
clerk from Boulder County, is also on and is going to speak after me.

And she could talk a little bit more about that. Okay, Jenna. Well, we are very grateful
that you were able to come, and I know you've got another commitment that you need to
take off for. So, thank you so much. And, you know, you're welcome back anytime.

Oh, thank you, Robin. Thank you, Christine, and all the Invisible Leadership and all the
members. I just really want to underline every single one of you can make a huge
difference. I grew up in a cabin with an outhouse outside on food stamps, decided to
run for office, at the age of 32 and won. I think it makes, it has made a big difference.

Every single one of you has a voice. You have power. So stay at it, and I'm really glad to
have joined you tonight. So thank you. Thank you, secretary Griswold.

Bye bye.