It is often said that the most dangerous place in American politics is between a blindly ambitious candidate and a television camera.

In contrast to decades of dedicated service by previous Colorado Secretaries of State, incumbent Democrat Jena Griswold has made media exposure her first, primary and only pursuit for the past six years. And it has finally caught up with her when her incompetence has disrupted Colorado’s electoral process.

Now we’ve known it for four months, four months! — Passwords to election computers in 63 of 64 counties were exposed, allegedly by an employee in Griswold’s office, but Griswold was not even aware of this fact until recently. Talk about staying on top of your work.

Once he found out, he did not alert the 64 county clerks or any other public officials, including Gov. Jared Polis. When the password exposure was revealed, media expert Griswold was initially unavailable for public comment.

When she reluctantly gave interviews to the media, they were nothing short of public relations disasters as she wavered and refused to take responsibility for this assault on Colorado’s electoral process within the office to which she was elected.

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It won’t stretch your imagination to believe there’s much more to this scandal than just an anonymous employee gone rogue, but it will take more than Griswold’s “internal investigation” to find out more. The Denver District Attorney, Colorado Attorney General, and even the FBI should get involved, like when convicted and imprisoned Tina Peters was caught illegally tampering with election equipment in Mesa County.

Fortunately, 64 outstanding county clerks from across the state are ultimately running Colorado’s elections and will make sure they are done right. Griswold’s antagonistic relationship with a large number of employees is well known.

Griswold benefited from deep animosity in the Colorado electorate toward then-President Donald Trump when she unseated Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams in 2018, and that same dynamic propelled her to re-election in 2022 against the former Republican Jefferson County Clerk. , Pam Anderson. This fiasco flat out would not have happened under Williams or Anderson.

Griswold should resign. His second term does not expire until after the 2026 midterm elections, when open seats for governor, attorney general, state treasurer and secretary of state are on the ballot along with U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who is running for a second term.

Not only can Colorado not afford two more years of blindly partisan incompetence, but it’s no secret that Griswold plans to seek the Democratic nomination for governor in 2026, so her obsession with media attention without paying attention to her work will be in full gear.

Griswold would be one of several high-profile Democrats who could run for governor.

Gov. Jared Polis is eminently capable of appointing a true Secretary of State to fill out the term through 2026. In fact, there are three relatively recent examples in which governors from different parties rose to the challenge of appointing a new Secretary of State when the position passed to be vacant.

Republican Secretary of State Vikki Buckley tragically died in office in July 1999, after being elected in 1994 and re-elected in 1998. Buckley was the first African-American woman to be elected Secretary of State.

Republican Governor Bill Owens appointed Arapahoe County Clerk Donetta Davidson to the position, which was almost unanimously applauded by county clerks across the state. Davidson had the unique distinction of having previously served as county clerk in rural Bent County and then suburban Arapahoe County.

Davidson resigned in 2005 after being appointed to the Election Assistance Commission in Washington. DC Owens appointed former State Senator Gigi Dennis of Pueblo to fill out the term.

Republican Secretary of State Mike Coffman was elected in 2006, but resigned in 2009 after being elected to the United States Congress from the Sixth Congressional District in 2008. Democratic Governor Bill Ritter had no legal requirement to appoint a Republican to replace Coffman.

Ritter named former state Rep. Bernie Buescher of Grand Junction, who had also been the Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor in 1998. Buescher ran with Lt. Governor Gail Schoettler, who was defeated by Owens. Owens became the first Republican governor elected in 28 years and remains the only Republican governor to hold the office in the last 50 years.

Interestingly, between 1974 and 2006, Republican women served as Secretary of State for 32 consecutive years, including Mary Estill Buchanan, Natalie Meyer, Vikki Buckley, Donetta Davidson and Gigi Dennis.

Buescher served with distinction but was unseated in 2010 when 106,000 more Republicans than Democrats voted in the general election.

Resigning is not only the right thing to do given this password fiasco, but it would also allow Griswold to run for governor full-time for the next two years; not that she wouldn’t have done it anyway, even as secretary of state.

Since she cannot run for re-election, running for governor would give voters a chance to render their own verdict on her blindly partisan, media-obsessed and careless tenure as secretary of state.

And Colorado Republicans, who have been bogged down by Trump’s deep unpopularity over the past three election cycles while Democrats now have unlimited power at every level, could be competitive in the 2026 gubernatorial election, especially if Griswold is the candidate.

Jena Griswold for governor!

Dick Wadhams is a former Colorado Republican state chairman who worked for U.S. Senator Bill Armstrong for nine years before running the campaigns of U.S. Senators Hank Brown and Wayne Allard, and Governor Bill Owens.