ELBERT COUNTY, Colo. — A judge in Elbert County will be the first to find out who has a copy of the county's election server besides Republican Clerk and Recorder Dallas Schroeder.
Schroeder has admitted to making two copies of the Dominion Voting System election server on external hard drives. He previously said he was in possession of one, while the other was with an unnamed person.
At a court hearing on Friday, Judge Gary Kramer ordered Schroeder to identify the mystery person who had one of the external hard drives, along with a chain of custody of both external hard drives.
He gave Schroeder's attorney John Case until 5 p.m. on Tuesday to provide the name, address and phone number of the person, as well as a log of where the hard drives have been.
The information will be suppressed and only available for the judge to view, and not the public.
The judge has not yet ruled on whether or not Schroeder must turn the two hard drives over to the Democratic Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold.
Griswold first issued an election order requiring Schroeder to turn the hard drives over, along with information of who had them and where they had been. Schroeder did not comply with that order, so Griswold sued Schroeder to get a judge to require her order to be enforced.
On Thursday, Reuters reported on eight local election security breaches. Two of those are in Colorado. The first was Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was indicted by a Grand Jury on charges of election tampering. The second is Schroeder.
In court on Friday, Griswold's attorney, Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Hunt, told the judge: "This case is not about the validity of the 2020 election. This case is not about what is on the hard drives. It's not about whether Mr. Schroeder violated any election laws. What this is about is Mr. Schroeder, who is subordinate to the Secretary of State, is required to comply with investigatory orders."
She asked the judge to not "let the sideshow take over the circus."
"Denying our petition here would give county clerks the green light to do whatever they want," Hunt said.
Schroeder's attorney John Case argued that the external hard drives are not required to be turned over to Griswold because they are not components of the voting system.
"She has authority over voting system components, but the external hard drives are not voting system components," said Case.
Case contradicted himself at one point. He said that Schroeder has both external hard drives at his office, but later said they were not in the same location and that Schroeder had them "under his control."
Before being ordered to reveal the identity of the mystery person with the second hard drive, Case said they would be willing to name him to the judge.
"We have offered to disclose the identity of the person who had it, with a protective order so that the person is not harassed," said Case.
Case also said that Schroeder would be willing to allow Griswold to see what was on each hard drive, but not at the same time, and only if there was an order that she would have to return them to Schroeder.
"The concern is if he keeps one, we don't know what he's going to do with it," Hunt argued on Griswold's behalf.
That gallery that attended the hearing laughed at that comment.
The Elbert County courtroom in Kiowa was packed so much that the judge allowed overflow attendees to sit in the jury box to watch. The majority of those in the gallery were supporters of Schroeder.
One issue not discussed in court, but spelled out in court filings, involves an attempt by Fox News Network to get copies of the external hard drives.
Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News Network for defamation in a Delaware court. As part of that lawsuit, Fox News Network obtained a subpoena for Elbert County to turn over copies of the copied election server external hard drive. In court filings, Case argued on Schroeder's behalf that if he had to hand over the external hard drives to Griswold, it would prevent Fox News Network from getting the information it is seeking from the subpoena.
Case said that Schroeder has not seen what is on the hard drives. Hunt argued for Griswold that the Secretary of State's Office needs to review the hard drive contents to see if any violation has occurred.