FAQ with Amanda Gonzalez for Secretary of State

The Secretary of State’s job is to make democracy work in real life: run secure, transparent, accessible elections, protect voting rights, support county clerks, and defend our election systems and voters from any and all threats. It is primarily a legal and technical role, requiring deep knowledge of election operations and skilled analysis of election law. It is not a legislative job, although it plays an important role in the development of certain laws that impact voting. Most importantly, the Secretary of State is the Democracy Defender in Chief!

Here are some good questions to ask any candidate for this job:

1. Have you run elections before?

2. Have you managed election security threats?

3. Do you understand the technology behind our voting systems?

4. Do you have the legal expertise to navigate and defend election law under pressure?

Think about what matters most to you given the current moment and what Colorado's elections need right now. This isn't a role where on-the-job training works well. The learning curve is steep and the stakes are high.

My experience isn’t theoretical. I run elections for nearly half a million voters in Jefferson County, Colorado’s third-largest county. I have led large-scale election operations involving hundreds of election workers and hundreds of thousands of ballots. I oversee equipment testing before each election, results audits after each election, and every step in between. I also wrote or co-wrote several of our voting and election laws, for systems like Automatic Voter Registration, multilingual ballot access, and jail voting. In 2025, my county had more ballots returned than any other county in the state because I prioritized voter outreach and education. I'm the only candidate in this race who has actually run elections, which is why I’m also the only candidate being quoted in news articles across the state and country about elections [LINK TO NEWS PAGE] – I’m the elections expert in this race.

Yes. Regularly. When election deniers tried to use legal loopholes to remove 23,000 voters from my rolls, I crafted the legal argument that blocked it. I’ve upgraded video surveillance of my election spaces, investigated fire suppression systems for ballot drop boxes, written contingency plans for disruptions to the mail, and increased security measures to protect election workers. I deal with security threats all the time—from small to large and from physical to digital, from those who wish to damage the election system to those who want to sow seeds of doubt and undermine trust. This isn't theoretical for me. It's an average Tuesday.

Yes. I work with these systems every day. I know how each ballot gets developed, tested, printed, mailed, scanned, verified, tabulated, and audited. I know what our security protocols look like from the inside. I know what a change from Dominion to Liberty Vote means, and the differences between an Agilis and Bluecrest sorting machine. There are voter registration databases and election results reporting software and ballot tracking systems and so much more, and they all have to work together. When legislators consider bills that could affect our systems, I already weigh in as an expert. That kind of knowledge doesn't come from reading about it. It comes from running it.

Yes. I'm an election lawyer. I've written election laws. I’ve implemented election laws. I’ve outmaneuvered election deniers with legal savvy and previously ran the state’s largest election protection effort, training and managing a host of volunteer lawyers to protect voting rights in Colorado. I’ve even taught election law at the University of Denver! When the federal government makes unlawful demands, I know what legal tools I can use to protect Colorado’s voters. My expertise in election law has been tested time and again in high-pressure situations, and it’s one of the most important skills I bring to this work.

I helped draft and pass Colorado's Automatic Voter Registration law (SB19-235), which registered more than 250,000 voters in its first year. I helped draft the anti-gerrymandering constitutional amendments (Amendments Y & Z) that created Colorado's independent redistricting commissions. I helped write the first-in-the-nation jail voting law (SB24-072), which led to nearly 2,600 Coloradans voting from jail in 2024 — an 823% increase from 2022. I helped draft our multilingual ballot access law (HB21-1011), expanding translated ballots from 6 counties to 20. And I helped write and pass the Accurate Residence for Redistricting Act (HB20-1010), which ended a form of prison gerrymandering.

I'm the only candidate in this race who has both administered large-scale, high-turnout elections and helped draft the statewide laws that govern them. I run elections for nearly half a million voters, I've written election law, I teach election law and I've defended voters against election denial efforts.

I’ve had so many, but a recent one that I still get emotional when I think about is the expansion of voting in Colorado’s jails. In our state, the only criminal justice-related reason you’re not eligible to vote is if you’re currently “serving a term of confinement for a felony conviction” – in other words, if you’re incarcerated for a felony. If you’re serving time for a misdemeanor or in jail awaiting trial, you’re eligible to vote. But being eligible to vote and actually being able to cast a ballot are two fundamentally different things. In my county, less than 1% of eligible voters in jail successfully cast a ballot prior to 2024.

I helped write and pass a bill that created in-person voting opportunities in every single county in Colorado, and increased voter turnout in my county jail to over 40%. When I spoke with one of the voters on that first day of voting in jail, he told me it was one of the top five experiences of his life. That it made him feel like he mattered. That’s why I do this work – because democracy belongs to all of us.

Honestly? I could have stayed in my current role as Jefferson County’s Clerk and Recorder. I’m not term-limited. But I’ve been watching the erosion of trust in our elections. The new threats from our own federal government and the impact of The Big Lie. I can’t just wait it out when I know that I can help.

Democracy is how we protect what we love. It’s how we ensure we can pay for our groceries and how we fight to improve our kids’ schools and how we protect our air and water. It’s how we show up for our neighbors and express our hope for the future. None of that is possible if our elections don’t work. And right now, our elections need someone who has the experience and expertise to know how to fight for them. That's why I'm running.