The Colorado County Clerks Association this month published a “detailed analysis disproving the Mesa County ‘forensic’ report” and posted it to the organization’s web page. The unsigned report lists no sources or specific investigators with their credentials, or any sort of analysis other than their claims that they’ve debunked the Mesa Reports.
The CCCA report summary reads:
“Upon examination, the Mesa County District Attorney, the Colorado Secretary of State, and the Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA) all determined these claims were false or misleading“
This report is a direct response to the four Mesa Reports that were released following an analysis by several computer science professionals following their assessment of the forensic image authorized by former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is serving more than nine years in Colorado prison for convictions related to the actions taken to make those images of the Dominion software prior to the Secretary of State’s “Trusted Build”.
The CCCA report mentions that Peters was “not a whistleblower” and was “not charged or convicted of anything related to preserving or backing up election records.” Instead, it notes that she was convicted of multiple felony counts for “attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, identity theft-related offenses, official misconduct, and violation of duty.”
The CCCA, a non-governmental body, relied on the District Attorney, the Secretary of State, and itself, the CCCA, for this assessment while claiming the authors of the Mesa Reports lacked “both expertise and context” and “misinterpreted normal procedures as irregularities and misrepresented lawful system behavior as evidence of wrongdoing.”
Mesa Reports #1 and #2 were written by Doug Gould, who has more than 40 years experience in cyber security, including 31 years working for AT&T as the Chief Cyber Security Strategist.
Mesa Reports #3 and #4 were written by Jeff O’Donnell and Dr. Walter Daugherty. O’Donnell has over 40 years of experience in software and database development and has worked for Rockwell International, Westinghouse Electric Nuclear, General Defense, U.S. Steel, and the Penn State Applied Research Laboratory, and is currently the Chief Information Officer for Ordos Analytics, “which specializes in election analytics,” according to the report.
Dr. Daugherty is a Senior Lecturer Emeritus at Texas A&M’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering, with a doctorate from Harvard University.
By comparison, Secretary of State Jena Griswold has a law degree and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and Spanish Literature.
The “Key Points” in the report’s summary state that:
- No records were destroyed. All ballots, audit logs, and required records were preserved before system updates.
- Systems were properly certified. The voting system testing lab (VSTL) Colorado uses was never decertified, Wi-Fi was
disabled, and all software was approved and tested.- Databases were not “unauthorized.” A new database was created when a staff member made a mistake while
troubleshooting. All ballots were still accounted for. This is not illegal.- Reports are not illegal. The existence of internal reports before Election Day is not against the law unless results are
released early, which never happened.- Voting patterns were normal. Split-ticket voting is common in Colorado. For instance, voters often back liberal candidates
statewide while voting against tax increases.
Report #1: Data Deletion
In the main report from the CCCA, “Report #1: Data Deletion” states that:
“The files cited in Mesa Report #1 were routine Windows operating-system
event logs that are automatically overwritten by the system. This normal
computer behavior is not evidence of deletion or tampering.Operating system logs are not election records (emphasis added). Under federal law (52 U.S.C. §20701), state law (C.R.S. §1-7-802), and election rule (Colo. Election Rule
20.10.2), election records include ballots, CVRs, chain of custody documentation, audit logs, etc., not operating system files. Election records are preserved every election and again before the Trusted Build takes place.”Report #1’s central claim is incorrect. There was no fraud, no destruction of
election records (emphasis added), only incorrect legal interpretation.
Statute 52 USC 20701, the federal law mandating election record retention, requires “every officer of election” to “retain and preserve…all records and papers which come into his possession” for acts “requisite to voting”.
Because this law was passed in 1960 as part of the Civil Rights Act, record retention is vague with regard to technological advances in elections since its passage. However, The Federal Prosecution of Election Offenses, Eighth Edition 2017 explains that “the detection, investigation, and proof of election crimes…often depends on documentation generated during the voter registration, voting, tabulation, and election certification processes.”
Further, it states that “all documents and records that may be relevant to the detection or prosecution of…election crimes must be maintained if the documents or records were generated in connection with an election that included one or more federal candidates.”
The U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, and NIST standards all acknowledge the significance of operating system event logs as evidence in detecting and prosecuting crimes involving computer systems.
The peer-reviewed publication “Sufficiency of Windows Event Log As Evidence in Digital Forensics” states that, “The Windows event log is the most important source of evidence during digital forensic investigation of a Windows system because the log files connect certain events to a particular point in time.”
Further, as noted by the Mesa Report authors (who “lacked experience”), the Dominion Voting Systems Maintenance Manual states:
For high-volume logs, set the maximum size to at least 2 GB (20480 KB) to accommodate growth during election activities. This applies to:
o Application Log (general application events).
o Security Log (audit events like logins and file access).
o EMS System Log or DVS Adjudication Log (system-specific audit events).
Last week, Colonel Shawn Smith (USAF-Ret’d) joined the Why We Vote podcast to debunk the CCCA’s report. Col. Smith worked for decades in the Department of Defense doing cybersecurity and threat work.
Regarding Report #1 from the CCCA, here was Col. Smith’s response regarding the significance of maintaining the Windows Event logs as election records:
Let me start off by saying I will give as much time as needed for Matt Crane and the Colorado Clerks Association to respond to Col. Smith’s claims on this podcast!! My DMs are open to schedule a rebuttal.
Last week on Why We Vote, @ShawnSmith1776 joined @AsheinAmerica… pic.twitter.com/z8VPsup6kV
— CannCon (@CannConActual) October 26, 2025
Col. Smith continued about the significance of the voting system being able to overwrite logs rather than retain them:
Colorado System Logs were intentionally designed to overwrite themselves.
This was actually referenced in the Venezuelan whistleblower testimony about how the US running elections for a month or more makes this a likely scenario if the logs aren’t backed up properly. pic.twitter.com/WRfZ7gFGdX
— CannCon (@CannConActual) October 26, 2025
Part 2 of this series will cover CCCA’s Report #2: Certification, Wi-Fi, LibreOffice, & SQL Server.
The CCCA, as well as Matt Crane, it’s executive director, have been invited to respond to Col. Smith’s assertions regarding the organization’s report.
For the full episode of Why We Vote, click here or watch below:
Poorly written, no authors cited, no credentials cited and no samples from the backups to prove their claims. Would fail any kind of normal peer review, even if their claims were accurate https://t.co/H87emQQLCH
— Draza Smith (@DrazhaS) October 21, 2025
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