Peter Bernegger filed a federal civil rights lawsuit on June 16 against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and four of her senior officials, alleging they designed and ran a sham administrative hearing to dismiss his election integrity complaint — a complaint about their own office. The suit, Bernegger v. Griswold et al., Case No. 1:26-cv-02668, is filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and alleges violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendments. It does not allege election fraud. It alleges that Colorado officials violated Bernegger’s constitutional rights in the process used to rule against him.
On February 20, 2026, Bernegger and Highlands Ranch resident Michael Cahoon filed HAVA Complaint No. 2026-001 with the Colorado Secretary of State, asserting seven counts of alleged violations of the Help America Vote Act relating to voter roll records in Colorado’s SCORE system. Griswold was the named respondent. Her office accepted and docketed the complaint and scheduled a hearing for May 11.
Before the hearing opened, Elections Division Legal Analyst Kathleen Wallace notified Bernegger in writing that there would be no cross-examination, that the Department would not produce Griswold or Elections Division Director Judd Choate as witnesses, and that the Division “will not mount a defense at that hearing.” Bernegger’s written requests for a witness list, exhibit list, and investigator report went unanswered. He submitted all of his own exhibits by the Department’s deadline of May 8. The Department submitted nothing.
The hearing opened on May 11. Bernegger learned at that moment — not before — that Deputy Secretary of State Andrew Kline would preside. Kline is Griswold’s direct subordinate. The complaint whose subject was Griswold’s own administration of election records was being adjudicated by the official who serves at her pleasure. Kline stated on the record that the proceeding was not subject to the Colorado Administrative Procedure Act, not a trial, and not subject to federal or state rules of evidence. He noted Bernegger’s objections for the record and issued no rulings on any of them. No Department witness testified. No Department exhibit was entered. Every speaker at the hearing other than Kline was Bernegger or a witness Bernegger called.
Ten days after the hearing closed, Elections Division Legal, Policy, and Rulemaking Manager Caleb Thornton executed a sworn declaration analyzing Bernegger’s exhibits. On May 21 — the ninetieth and final day of the statutory window — Kline signed the Final Agency Determination dismissing all seven counts. That determination cited the Thornton Declaration at thirteen separate points as its principal evidentiary basis. Bernegger had no notice the declaration existed before the ruling issued and no opportunity to respond to it.
The complaint identifies a contradiction on the face of the declaration itself. Thornton swore that vote history cannot be added or removed from a voter record after an election is closed and certified. In the same document, Thornton described a specific record — voter ID No. 601653566 — whose 2024 general election vote history was absent on one report and present on a later report, attributing the change to a post-certification merge. By Thornton’s own sworn account, the 2024 vote history on a certified record changed after certification. His declaration offers no explanation for how that is consistent with his categorical statement that it cannot happen.
The federal complaint alleges four counts under § 1983: procedural due process, substantive due process, First Amendment retaliation, and civil rights conspiracy. Bernegger seeks compensatory, nominal, and punitive damages from each defendant individually, along with injunctive relief barring the May 21 Final Agency Determination from being used as precedent against him in future proceedings.
The complaint notes that Griswold was an active candidate for Colorado Attorney General throughout the entire 90-day pendency of the HAVA proceeding — a fact Bernegger argues is relevant to the bias analysis, given that the complaint was directed at her own administration of election records.
The case carries a procedural complication. On June 25, Magistrate Judge Richard T. Gurley issued an Order to Cure Deficiencies, finding the complaint was not filed on the court-approved form and exceeded the court’s 30-page limit at 79 pages. Bernegger has until July 25 to file an amended complaint on the proper form or the case will be dismissed without prejudice.
This suit joins two other active federal actions against Griswold. The U.S. Department of Justice filed suit in December 2025 after Griswold refused to turn over nonpublic voter registration data. The Republican National Committee filed suit on June 26 challenging Griswold’s policy allowing overseas citizens who have never lived in Colorado to register and vote under UOCAVA. A 2023 Judicial Watch settlement required Colorado to remove 372,000 inactive registrations from its rolls.
The underlying HAVA complaint — the voter roll allegations Bernegger and Cahoon raised in February — is not before the federal court. Bernegger must file an amended complaint on the court-approved form by July 25 or the case closes without prejudice before that question is ever reached.
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