DENVER — The online release of Colorado voting-machine passwords created a “serious problem,” but not serious enough to take the “extraordinary step” of ordering a hand-count on the day of the general election, according to state attorneys.

The Colorado Attorney General’s office defended the integrity of the state’s voting systems as it sought to beat back a legal challenge from the Colorado Libertarian Party at an eleventh-hour hearing Monday before Denver District Court Judge Kandace Gerdes.

“What is absent is any definitive evidence presented by the petitioners that any voting-system component was accessed in an unauthorized fashion, much less then altered or modified in a way that would allow that component to compromise or manipulate the accuracy of the results of tomorrow’s election,” said Assistant Attorney General LeeAnn Morrill at the hearing. “That is utterly absent.”

Judge Gerdes did not rule from the bench, but the clock is ticking on the Libertarian Party’s lawsuit, which urges the court to order a series of Election Day remedies in reaction to the breach of the Basic Input/Output System [BIOS] passwords used in 63 of the state’s 64 counties.

The party asked for a hand count of paper ballots in the affected counties, the decommissioning of all voting machines whose passwords were exposed, and the recusal of Secretary of State Jena Griswold from Tuesday’s election.

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis announced Friday that all the passwords have been changed on all the affected machines, assuring voters that the ballots cast in Tuesday’s election will be counted “fairly and accurately.”

At the hearing, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Beall said that even though most Colorado counties use the BIOS election systems, the leak affected 255 machines in the 34 counties that had their current voting-machine passwords posted online.

The passwords were contained in a spreadsheet that was posted June 21 and removed Oct. 24, meaning they were publicly available for four months, but Mr. Beall said he wouldn’t describe the snafu as a “security breach,” calling it a “disclosure that should not have happened.”

Under questioning from Gary Fielder, the attorney representing the state Libertarians, Mr. Beall acknowledged that he could neither prove nor disprove that the voting systems have been compromised by an outside party.

“I have no information that any unauthorized person has accessed the voting systems,” said Mr. Beall. “I also have no information indicating someone has accessed improperly the voting systems. We are currently in the process of evaluating that.”

NEW: 46 counties had voting machines with passwords that were visible on hidden tab online. 34 of those counties had machines with passwords still active. The machines in the other 12 counties already had new passwords and those passwords were outdated. #copolitics

— Marshall Zelinger (@Marshall9News) November 4, 2024

Ms. Griswold has said that the passwords were mistakenly posted by a former employee, but the breach has led to calls for the Democrat’s resignation.

Shawn Smith, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who works on election security for Cause of America, raised concerns that the passwords may have been hacked by China or Russia, a scenario that the attorney general’s office dismissed as “scaremongering.”

Ms. Morrill argued that the Secretary of State’s office deserved “the presumption of regularity,” while Mr. Fielder said that any such presumption has been thrown out the window by the leak.

“The presumption of regularity has been overcome by the Secretary of State’s own admission,” he said.

“We’re talking about a security risk of the state’s voting rights. It’s not about evidence that someone accessed it or did something. There’s a security risk, and there’s not enough time to figure it out,” he said.