Colorado Newsline: A panel of Colorado election security experts Monday attempted to persuade an audience of officials and residents in Custer County, a hotbed of election skepticism, that elections can be trusted.

The panelists faced a sometimes hostile crowd, which came out for the Board of County Commissioners workshop at Lange Hall in Westcliffe. Through occasional interruptions they described in detail how elections operate in Colorado, how they are kept secure, particulars of voting machine hardware and ballot counting mechanics, and why hand counts are not feasible. They tried to debunk the most common claims made by election deniers.

“They didn’t talk to election experts and election administrators,” one of the panelists, Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said about people who have propagated false claims about election systems. “They don’t know election law. They don’t know election process. They don’t know how these systems are supposed to function. Those are the common themes throughout all of this.”

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