Colorado’s Secretary of State is best known for overseeing statewide elections and associated election issues, but the job description also includes overseeing all of the divisions and programs involved with the Department of State. This includes business records and documents, professional lobbyist records, and even regulation of bingo and raffle events.

Secretaries of State are elected for four-year terms, and term-limited after two terms. The current Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, is term-limited after serving two full terms, so this seat is open in 2026. The candidate with the most votes wins this election, and it’s not necessary to reach 50% or more.

Amanda Gonzalez, Democratic

Amanda Gonzalez

Amanda Gonzalez is the Democratic nominee for Colorado Secretary of State, earning the nomination by defeating Colorado state Sen. Jessie Danielson by about 63% – 37%. Gonzalez is currently finishing her first term as Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder, and she won her election to this post by about 57% – 43% over Republican Vicki Pyne.

Gonzalez earned a bachelor’s degree from Occidental College (Los Angeles) in 2006 and a law degree from the University of Denver, Sturm College of Law in 2011, per Ballotpedia. Per the Jefferson County Clerk’s website, Gonzalez has held a number of other positions, including policy analyst, staff attorney, small business CEO, and Chicano Studies adjunct professor.

Before being elected as County Clerk, Gonzalez served as the Executive Director of Common Cause Colorado from 2018 to 2022. Common Cause is a national nonprofit with state branches, known for advocacy work on a number of issues including election law and policy. She has spearheaded or been involved with efforts including fostering jail-based voting, expanding numbers of ballot drop boxes, allowing multilingual ballots, and helping to draft laws regarding automatic voter registration, strengthening redistricting, and protecting election security.

She notes on her website that she helped write the following state election bills or initiatives:

  • Automatic Voter Registration (SB19-235): Allows for applicants for driver’s licenses and Medicaid to be automatically registered to vote, though they could opt-out.
  • Multilingual Ballot Access (HB21-1011): Expanded multilingual ballot access in Colorado
  • Colorado’s first in-jail voting law (SB24-072): Required county clerks to make “best efforts” to coordinate with corrections agencies so eligible voters who are incarcerated can vote.
  • Ballot measures to establish the Colorado Independent Redistricting Commissions (Covered in the 2018 Colorado Blue Book under Amendments Y and Z)

For a brief view of her policy and management objectives should she become Secretary of State:

  • The right to vote, safely, for everyone who’s legally qualified: She claims to have defended Jefferson County voters against an attempt to purge about 23,000 voters from the county’s voter rolls. She pushed back on federal executive orders targeting mail-in ballots; expanded physical election security measures in her election center; and protected election workers under pressure.
  • Run trustworthy elections: She is aware of AI-generated election disinformation, and knows election officials are likely to face “attacks we haven’t seen yet.” As Clerk, Gonzales worked on contingency plans in case of election problems.
  • Innovation where necessary: As Jefferson County Clerk, her office won federal Election Assistance Clearinghouse (EAC) awards for elections best practices in 2023, 2024, and 2025. The 2025 award was for the county’s voter signature update project, to help first-time voters add more signature samples to their voter file, which can help improve ballot acceptance rates. Gonzales also believes Colorado’s TRACER system, which includes a ton of information about candidates, issue committees, and campaign finance, needs streamlining and updating.
  • Business and nonprofit services: The Secretary of State’s office isn’t just about elections. While Gonzales was County Clerk, her office helped residents by streamlining processes and expanding hours of service if necessary.

Follow The Money: As of Oct. 9, the Gonzales campaign had reported $395,376.06 in monetary contributions, along with $6,921.11 in non-monetary contributions.

Campaign website: https://www.amandaforcolorado.com/

James Wiley, Republican

James Wiley

James Wiley is the Republican nominee for Secretary of State, and was unopposed in the 2026 GOP primary to earn the nomination. He ran in 2024 as a Libertarian for the U.S. House of Representatives in Congressional District 3, finishing third out of four candidates with 2.4% of the vote.

Wiley was born in Colorado Springs, and earned an MBA from Colorado State University-Pueblo. Per his website, he “grew up in Kazakhstan witnessing the fall out of the communist government in the former Soviet Union and the rise of capitalism.” Per Ballotpedia questionnaire responses, he has worked as director of Project Thaler, director of Save Our Suffrage, former executive director of the Libertarian Party of Colorado, and Secretary of the Chainsaw Caucus.

Wiley has not held elected office, nor does it appear that he has worked in an elections office. However, he has entered into lawsuits against Dominion Voting Systems, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the Secretaries of State and Governors of Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, Secretary Griswold 5 times, and Amanda Gonzalez for what he calls “election misconduct.”

For a brief listing of some of his policy positions from his website and other sources:

  • Change Colorado’s current election system: Wiley favors the following changes: “one-day” voting as opposed to our current system of extended early voting options; “in-person” voting; requiring voter ID while voting; use of paper ballots; and hand-counting of the ballots as opposed to electronic means.
  • Move public records to blockchain: Wiley supports this move for greater transparency, auditability, and affordability. The records would include voter registrations, business records, and property records, among others.
  • Decertify voting machines: He told KRDO TV that he would “Decertify AI-compromised electronic voting machines on Day One. (and would) Replace reliance on hackable, error-prone, AI controlled systems with decentralized, citizen-controlled processes.”
  • Potentially delete existing voter rolls: The Colorado Times Recorder reported that Wiley said on the Kim Monson Show that one of his priorities with voter rolls would be “to begin to audit them, to begin to review them, and if possible, to delete them.” (Note: readers might want to read the full CTR story linked above for more perspective).

Follow The Money: As of Oct. 9, the Wiley campaign had reported $69,289.53 in contributions.

Campaign website: https://wileyforcolorado.com/

Celeste Landry, Colorado Forward Party

Celeste Landry

Celeste Landry is the nominee for Secretary of State with the Colorado Forward Party, and she did not have to face a primary in 2026. She is a long-time researcher and activist on election issues, and is a Boulder resident. Landry has a master’s degree in Operations Research from George Washington University. She ran unsuccessfully in a 2022 vacancy committee for the Democratic Party nomination in House District 10.

She has long been active with the League of Women Voters, and as of June 2026 she was listed as one of the leaders of LWV’s Timing of Municipal and Special District Elections study group. She was also active for decades with the Boulder County Democratic Party and Colorado Democratic Party until deciding to run for Secretary of State with the Colorado Forward Party. Landry was named a Presidential Elector (able to cast one of the state’s Electoral College votes) in 2016.

Landry has not held a job as the top election official for public elections, but has been involved with election legislation and attempts to change elections systems for many years. She has worked as a citizen lobbyist and testified on a number of state election-related bills. She has also been an active participant at the Secretary of State’s office, including time in Title Board and rulemaking hearings.

Landry has said her top priority for running was because she believed a state bill passed in 2025 actually disenfranchised voters in certain situations where vacancy elections must happen to replace legislators who resign in the middle of their term. She supports elections to replace state legislators who resign to be open to all voters in a district, not just to those from the same political party as the legislator who resigned. Landry actively opposed and continues to oppose a state law (passed in HB 25-1315) that keeps some of the state’s current partisan vacancy committee process in place, but would also allow single-party elections in certain cases. (Readers can check this link or other sources to learn more about HB 25-1315 and the League of Women Voters lawsuit against that bill)

She has been especially active in efforts or discussions to try changing longstanding election systems and procedures. For example, she supported Proposition 131 in 2024, which would have created “all-candidate” primary elections open to every candidate, and the top four candidates in each race would run in a general election to be settled with ranked-choice voting. This would have been different from today’s system where primaries are only open to affiliated party candidates. In general, Landry typically supports voting systems that are as inclusive as possible, which might include Ranked Choice or Instant Runoff Voting, Approval Voting, or the STAR system that allows voters to “score” candidates and top finishers go to an instant runoff to determine the winner.

Landry also supports moving away from single-winner districts and toward proportional representation. Per her website: “When a district elects multiple members using a proportional voting method, gerrymandering is virtually impossible and more electoral groups get
representation leading to better decisions.”

For a few more of Landry’s policy positions:

  • She wants to change the law so 17-year-olds who will be 18 by the general election can vote in primaries. This was the case until Amendment 76 passed in 2022.
  • Landry supports “robust” audits of ballot counts and chain-of-custody of election materials. (Readers can check this link or other sources to see what kind of audits already exist)
  • She supports Colorado’s current vote-by-mail system that includes early voting opportunities, since “voters can thoughtfully research and vote their ballots over a couple of weeks in their own homes rather than vote the ballot in minutes in a polling place.”

Follow The Money: As of Oct. 9, the Landry campaign had reported $44,185.29 in monetary contributions, and $3,930.00 in non-monetary contributions.

Campaign website: https://www.celeste4sos.com/

Amanda Campbell, American Constitution Party

Amanda Campbell ran for Secretary of State in 2014, finishing third with 3.9% of the vote, again in 2018, finishing third with 2.1% of the vote, and again in 2022, finishing fourth with 0.71% of the vote. She also launched a campaign for the Colorado House of Representatives in 2020, but withdrew before the election.

As of early June 2026, she did not appear to have a current campaign website. Ballotpedia provided a few quotes from her 2022 website. In short, she supported the Colorado initiative process as a check and balance on state legislators. She said the state’s system for business filing with the Secretary of State’s office needed to be updated. She added that the state needs to work with rural counties on issues like voter information and election security.

Sean Vadney, Libertarian

Sean Vadney finished second in a Libertarian primary to Alex Astley, but Astley withdrew from the race a few months before the election. In early September, a Denver District Court judge ruled that Vadney could appear on the ballot as the Libertarian candidate.

Vadney is a musician who does not appear to have served in elected office before. As of early September, his website was not heavy on specifics, but he listed a few values that he intends to bring to the office:

  • Fair and accessible elections for every voter
  • Streamline processes, cut red tape, and make information easily accessible to the public
  • Simplify filing requirements, reduce fees where possible, and modernize systems so entrepreneurs can focus on building their businesses
  • Voting systems should protect both the integrity of elections and the personal data of voters.

Campaign website: https://seanvadneyforsos.org/

Richard’s Take

Vote Gonzalez, and please take this seriously. The job of Secretary of State and running the Department of State is voluminous and vital to our democracy and republic, or democratic republic, or whatever one calls it. Gonzalez has already done a large portion of what a Secretary of State must do by serving as County Clerk for Jefferson County, the fourth-largest county by population in Colorado.

Gonzalez’ experience and everything she learned on the campaign trail should help her hit the ground running, albeit probably with a learning curve due in part to the larger responsibilities of statewide office compared to county office. I cannot emphasize enough that our confidence in free and fair elections depends very largely on having a quality, trustworthy Secretary of State.

There’s no doubt in my mind that most Boulder voters won’t find Wiley’s platform appealing, and I’m a Boulder voter. I can understand some skepticism about electronic voting systems, but this to me should call for robust standards plus constant testing and improvement when needed, as opposed to just decertifying them.

I can’t even remotely support certain other things Wiley suggests. This includes going back to “one-day” voting as opposed to our great system of mail ballots and options to do early voting, and hand-counting all of the ballots. Colorado will probably have more than 2.5 million ballots cast in 2026, and my Boulder ballot will have like 40-ish races between candidates and ballot measures. Hand-counting is probably OK in small batches, but in giant counties like El Paso, Denver, or Arapahoe? And why should we trust everyone who will be needed for such a gigantic task?

There’s no need to change our existing system for security reasons, and we certainly do not need to delete our existing voter rolls and start from scratch. Our mail ballot system is convenient for voters, and I believe it’s false and/or fear-mongering for people to claim it’s insecure, since proven cases of voter fraud in Colorado can only be expressed in tiny numbers or infinitesimal percentages. Here’s a bit from the Colorado League of Women Voters:

“Voting by noncitizens is exceedingly rare. The conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, found only two examples of noncitizens being found guilty of attempting to register to vote in Colorado between 1982 and 2025.”

Wiley probably won’t win in 2026, but if he wants to continue challenging or suing election officials as a private citizen or with a nonprofit, carry on and good luck. Frankly, I don’t think it was all that bad to sue Griswold over the BIOS password security issues in 2024, even though the action wasn’t successful. If we’re to have an effective system of checks and balances, people who aren’t on the political inside have to challenge the insiders sometimes. But that still doesn’t mean I want Wiley as my Secretary of State. Just because he’s sued over a small number of issues doesn’t mean he’d be right on the countless other issues this job entails.

I’ll have a bit of an odd way to speak about Celeste Landry here – I won’t tell people to vote for her but I won’t disrespect people who do. My main problem with Landry’s campaign is that there could be a “spoiler effect” if too many people who would normally vote Democratic switch to the Forward Party candidate. For full disclosure, I have known her for several decades, and I’ve worked with her directly on volunteer projects with the Boulder County Democratic Party. Like the Forward Party candidate for U.S. Senate having been a long-time Republican, Landry has been a long-time Democrat. She’s extremely smart, a high-quality human being, and has definitely put in her hours on elections issues. I’m sure some Boulder-area readers might consider voting for her in this race because they know her, like her, and/or know of her work. And I’ve seen several of her yards signs on peoples’ yards in Boulder.

I’m definitely not a Republican but in following news over several decades, I’ve developed extremely serious mistrust of certain national-level Republicans when it comes to elections and election policy platforms. This is not meant to be a criticism of most Colorado Republican county clerks – I’ve read a bit from some of them, and I feel like they seem to be fair-minded straight shooter when it comes to running their offices.

It’s just that there have been too many recent nationwide right-wing efforts to disenfranchise people or use dishonest tactics to take the risk of having a GOP Secretary of State in Colorado. It’s lately been a steady stream of very sketchy strategies like trying to limit mail ballots, threats of using the US Postal Service to avoid sending mail ballots in certain states, the entire GOP effort toward mid-decade redistricting for partisan advantage, federalizing our voter data, and more. People involved in party politics inevitably rub elbows with other people involved in party politics, and I could almost guarantee that Wiley would at least receive contacts from people who don’t want the type of election system that I do. I can’t say whether Wiley would listen to them and try doing what they request or not, but why take the chance?

I consider Landry a friend and I have 100% certainty that she would put everything she’s got into a job like Secretary of State. It’s not lost on me that she supports efforts to minimize the spoiler effect moving forward, but she can’t get rid of it this year. I don’t always agree with her when she supports certain changes to our systems, but I respect her devotion to election policy and democracy, and she can always show her work. Gonzalez might very well beat Wiley by a wide margin in 2026, but he’s got the benefit of running with a major party which should be worth a lot. The Republican in 2022 got more than a million votes (though she had great qualifications for the job). Sorry to Landry or the other minor-party candidates, but the practical consequences of Dems or centrists or leftists not voting for Gonzalez and handing this election to Wiley could be quite bad.