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6 Charged With Election Fraud In Colorado

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2 years ago

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Six individuals have been accused of forging voter signatures in an endeavor to get a congressional candidate onto the FOP primary ballot in Colorado’s 7th District last year.

Attorney General Phil Weiser has announced that six individuals employed by Grassfire, a Wyoming-based petition circulator firm hired by the campaign of Carl Andersen, have been charged on counts of attempting to influence a public servant, a class 4 felony, and misdemeanor of perjury.

“Colorado’s best-in-class election system depends on individuals playing by the rules and acting with integrity,” Weiser said in a statement. “When candidates, their agents, or others in the process are deceitful and break the rules, they must be held accountable.”

Those charged include: Alex Joseph, Patrick Rimpel, Jordahni Rimpel, Terris Kintchen, Aliyah Moss, and Diana Watt, in connection to petitioning circulators for Grassfire.

Andersen, an owner of a construction company and first-time candidate, tried qualifying for the 2022 Republicans primary ballot in a Jefferson County district through petitioning, but failed to reach the minimum needed signatures following the rejection by the Secretary of State’s office for an “unprecedented number of signatures”.

Andersen’s campaign tried hiring Grassfire to collect the minimum of 1,5000 signatures needed to be placed on the primary ballot.

3,417 of the total 4,462 signatures on the petition were deemed invalid and rejected by the state, according to a statement by the Secretary of State Jena Griswold.

Almost 2,000 signatures of the allotted petition were found to not match the signatures on file for listed voters, and 900 names did not even appear to be registered voters of Colorado and 21 had died before the date of the signature. There were also instances of multiple times where numerous names, addresses and signatures appeared in different handwriting.

Watt told investigators of the Special Prosecutions Unit of the attorney general’s office that Grassfire circulators had cheated and committed fraud in Colorado and that her name is on some petitions that are “very bad,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Overall, it seems that Watt’s involvement in the petition-gathering process was limited to signing one section of a petition for another circulator who had to leave the state before getting their signatures notarized. However, Watt claims that the company told her to sign the petitions and that she believes the circulators had an outdated voter list that included deceased individuals.

Court documents reveal that when law enforcement interviewed the owners of Grassfire, they claimed they had no knowledge of the actions of their employees, including Watt’s signing of the petition. They also stated that they did not authorize Watt to sign the petition and were not aware that she had done so until after the fact. It is unclear whether the owners were found to be directly involved in the petition-gathering process or faced any charges or penalties related to their company’s actions.

It appears that Andersen is not facing any charges or accusations of wrongdoing related to the petition-gathering process. Additionally, it seems that the investigation conducted by Weiser’s office found no evidence of criminal misconduct by Grassfire, the company that employed Watt and contracted with Andersen’s campaign to gather signatures. It is unclear whether any civil or administrative penalties were imposed on Grassfire or its owners related to their employees’ actions during the petition campaign.

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