A September 6 Fort Collins Coloradoan article about the state's ongoing efforts to recertify electronic voting machines reported that the recertification process “was required by a court order stemming from a lawsuit over lax security measures.” The article, however, failed to report that the lawsuit and the court order resulted from the failure of former Republican Secretary of State Gigi Dennis' office to properly certify the security of the machines used during the November 2006 election. The Coloradoan is the latest Colorado media outlet to omit Dennis' role from coverage of the recertification process, as Colorado Media Matters has noted.

As the Coloradoan reported, “The Colorado Secretary of State's Office has ruled counties may use equipment employed in past elections to tally votes this year even as it goes through the process of certifying electronic voting systems that may be used in the state.” The article further reported:

That process is expected to stretch into December, officials said. Last week the Secretary of State Mike Coffman issued an ultimatum to four election equipment vendors that if they don't provide requested information on their systems by Nov. 16 they'll face decertification in Colorado.

That could cause trouble for counties as they scramble to obtain equipment that meets state and federal standards in time for next year's primary and general elections, [Larimer County Clerk Scott] Doyle said.

It's an unnerving and potentially costly prospect, he said.

“We're going into a presidential election with no idea of how we are going to count votes,” he said.

While the Coloradoan reported that the “recertification process ... was required by a court order stemming from a lawsuit over lax security measures,” it failed to mention that a Denver district judge ordered the recertification after finding in 2006 that Dennis' office failed to properly certify voting machines used in that year's general election.

As The Denver Post reported on September 24, 2006, Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares had ruled two days earlier that “Dennis' office never created minimum security standards for the [electronic voting] machines -- as required by state law” and that “the state did an 'abysmal' job of documenting testing during the certification process.”

In addition, the Greeley Tribune reported on August 11:

Part of the current headache stems from a Denver judge's decision last fall that Colorado's voting machines were improperly certified.

Former Denver District Judge Lawrence Manzanares -- who died earlier this summer -- ruled in September that the former secretary of state, Gigi Dennis, never developed minimum security standards for voting machines. He also said the state did an “abysmal” job of documenting testing during the certification process.

Manzanares said the machines could still be used in the November election, because forbidding them would cause more problems than it would solve.

After the ruling, Dennis issued a list of security measures to be followed around the state, at great expense to counties. In addition, Manzanares said the machines had to be recertified after the election. That task falls to Secretary of State Mike Coffman, who was sworn into office in January.

As Colorado Media Matters has noted, articles about the ongoing recertification process in the Post, the Rocky Mountain News, The Pueblo Chieftain, and The Daily Sentinel of Grand Junction similarly failed to point out Dennis' culpability regarding the lack of proper voting machine security and certification.