Part 1 – Inside the Colorado County Clerk’s Association
Colorado’s second-largest county no longer belongs to the Colorado County Clerks Association. El Paso County Clerk Steve Schleiker resigned as CCCA vice president on March 6 and withdrew the county from active membership on March 23 — less than two months after his peers elected him to the leadership post at the winter conference in Colorado Springs.
The reason he was given for his exclusion from executive leadership meetings did not survive his first phone call.
CCCA President Carly Koppes and Executive Director Matt Crane told Schleiker the Secretary of State’s office did not trust him and that his participation would be delayed until others felt “more comfortable.” Schleiker called the Secretary of State directly and spoke with multiple staff members. Every one of them denied those conversations had occurred.
In an email to a Colorado voter who noticed his name had disappeared from the CCCA leadership list, Schleiker said the exclusion “was developed internally by the CCCA President and Executive Director.” Koppes and Crane, in Schleiker’s words, created the justification themselves.
The CCCA bylaws do not authorize what was done to him. Article VII states the officers “shall consist of a President, President-Elect, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer, and Past President, who must be duly elected or appointed County Clerks.” No provision grants the Secretary of State authority over officer participation. The Secretary of State is not a member of the association.
Schleiker is not the first Republican clerk to describe this treatment. Fremont County Clerk Justin Grantham told Schleiker he experienced identical exclusion from executive leadership meetings during his own time in CCCA leadership. Grantham is a Republican. The meetings resumed when Democrat Molly Fitzpatrick of Boulder County became president.
The officer succession confirms the pattern. Grantham served as CCCA president. Fitzpatrick succeeded him. Hayle Johnson of Jackson County — a Republican, identified as such by former state GOP chairman Dick Wadhams — followed Fitzpatrick.
Koppes, a Republican from Weld County, is the current president. Jenny Thomas of Routt County, registered unaffiliated, is president-elect. Schleiker, the Republican vice president, lasted less than two months.
Schleiker’s resignation letter named Martha Tierney, general counsel for the Colorado Democratic Party, as a single individual exerting “significant influence over election-related legislation, directing caucus positions and outcomes.” That concern is examined in Part 3 of this series.
The letter also flagged HB26-1113, an election bill that passed the House 41-22 on party lines. Schleiker cited 23 amendments as evidence of serious underlying problems in what sponsors called a routine cleanup bill. Every Republican amendment on voter roll verification and cybersecurity was rejected.
Schleiker refused to repeat the CCCA’s branded message that Colorado elections are the “Gold Standard.” His record in El Paso County suggests he saw a system that needed work, not praise. He launched the state’s first credit-based voter roll verification program and upgraded all 44 ballot drop box cameras to solar-powered livestreaming units. He built a real-time GIS dashboard for voter registration data and reduced undeliverable ballots by 350 percent.
El Paso County has more than 730,000 residents. It is the largest Republican-led county in Colorado. The CCCA now claims to represent all 64 county clerks while missing the one who runs elections for more people than any other Republican clerk in the state.
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