Last election, I did something I hadn鈥檛 done in decades: I voted for a Democrat. In other elections, when I could not vote for the Republican, I wrote in a candidate.
This time, I voted for incumbent Littleton Mayor Kyle Schlachter. Having done a good job for the city and avoided scandal, Schlachter earned my vote. If you鈥檙e a partisan voter (and most of us are), consider doing what I did this November for one race: cross party lines to vote for Michael Allen for Colorado attorney general.
Allen鈥檚 experience and expertise in litigation far exceed that of his opponent, Jena Griswold. Equally important, he has avoided scandal while in public office, while she has misused the public鈥檚 money and trust as secretary of state. During her tenure, the office accidentally leaked voting system passwords, mailed voter registration postcards to 30,000 non-citizens, and lost a critical report taxpayers paid $25,000 to produce.
Recently, a judge ordered the secretary of state to try to find some record of this report. The roots of this scandal go back to 2021 when Griswold spent $25,000 to analyze why the office was churning through staff. SageRiver Consulting produced a long report of findings and recommendations, but no one knows where it is.
This year, Suzanne Taheri, the office鈥檚 former deputy secretary of state under Wayne Williams, inquired via an open records request about the report, and Griswold refused to divulge any information.
Thanks to the ruling, Griswold will now have to get records from the consultant. that Griswold was given the report but refused to take custody of it because it was critical of her mismanagement. She did not want to have to disclose the information if someone filed an open records request.
Not only was $25,000 of taxpayer money wasted, but the public is still in the dark and still losing money. Because the secretary of state did not retain records it should have back in 2021, the office will have to pay the consultant $4,000 to search archived digital records. That will bring the tab to $29,000, and the report may not even be there.
In the meantime, former staff is filling in the blanks left by the missing report. Reese Edwards, Griswold鈥檚 former director of government and public affairs, came forward in March on behalf of multiple staff members who were 鈥渁bused, bullied and ultimately discarded by Secretary Griswold.鈥� Her office was 鈥渁 hostile and volatile workplace鈥� with a 鈥渃limate of fear of retaliation.鈥�
With this track record of public office, Griswold should finish her term and return to private practice. But wait, it doesn鈥檛 seem she ever was in practice or litigated a single case in Colorado.
Perhaps in an effort to beef up her deficient credentials for attorney general, Griswold told people earlier this year that she argued a case before the United States Supreme Court. She didn鈥檛. I know because I was there as one of the six Republican and independent Colorado litigants in Trump v. Anderson. She was neither a fellow plaintiff nor one of our lawyers and has no right to take credit for their work.
By contrast, Michael Allen has two decades of prosecution experience, including more than five years as district attorney in the Fourth Judicial District. In that role, he prosecuted the most fentanyl death cases of any of the state鈥檚 district attorneys. He also put the murderer who killed five people at Club Q behind bars for life.
In addition to many successes, there is no record of his office abusing employees, leaking passwords, giving the public false information, or losing expensive reports.
The choice is clear. Vote for the only person with experience and integrity in the attorney general race, Michael Allen. Vote person over party.
Krista Kafer is a Denver Post Sunday columnist.
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