DENVER — Colorado’s secretary of state candidates offered sharply different approaches to running elections during an Oct. 7 debate at the Denver Press Club, with incumbent county election administrator Amanda Gonzalez defending the state’s mail-ballot system and Republican James Wiley calling for a return to more local, human-controlled voting. The winner of the Nov. 3 election will succeed term-limited Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat running for attorney general. The next secretary will oversee Colorado’s election system ahead of the 2028 presidential vote. Gonzalez, the Jefferson County clerk and recorder, said the state’s system combines paper ballots, bipartisan election workers, documented ballot handling and post-election audits. She said she oversees elections for nearly half a million voters and argued that her experience makes her prepared to lead statewide. “Every eligible voter” should be able to cast a ballot and have it accurately counted, Gonzalez said during the debate. Wiley, a political newcomer who said he would learn aspects of the secretary of state’s job while in office, argued that centralized administration and voting machines have weakened public confidence. “I’m not here to reform. I’m here to restore,” he said. He proposed replacing the statewide mail-ballot system with voting at local precincts, allowing limited absentee voting and counting ballots by hand. Wiley also said he would encourage rural counties, including Cheyenne and Moffat, to adopt hand counts. Gonzalez said more than 90% of Colorado voters return the ballots mailed to them, and that voting by mail gives people time to review lengthy ballots while accommodating work and family responsibilities. She said more than 80% of Coloradans had enrolled to receive ballots by mail before the state adopted its current system. Replacing it with precinct voting, she argued, could create barriers without evidence of widespread fraud. The candidates also disagreed about what drives distrust. Gonzalez said election officials should explain their procedures, including bipartisan ballot handling and risk-limiting audits that compare samples of paper ballots with machine results. She identified political leaders’ unsupported attacks on elections as a major threat to confidence. Wiley said voters cannot independently verify proprietary voting-machine software and argued that ballot oversight should extend further back than the point when ballots reach election officials. He also raised cybersecurity concerns and proposed blockchain technology for voter rolls. Gonzalez said the state’s cybersecurity protections are adequate and regularly updated. Their dispute comes amid past election-administration errors in Colorado. In 2022, Griswold’s office mistakenly sent about 20,000 voter-registration mailers to noncitizens. The debate account also noted that past ballot issues affected relatively small numbers of ballots and that officials said they did not change election outcomes. On voter registration, Gonzalez defended automatic registration through the Department of Motor Vehicles, saying records are updated daily using information from the Department of Revenue and other sources. She said election mail returned as undeliverable leads to a voter being marked inactive and stops additional ballots from being sent. She also said some voters may be eligible to vote in both residential and special-district elections because they own property in those districts. Wiley questioned relying on motor-vehicle records, saying mailing and residential addresses can differ, particularly in rural areas where people use post office boxes. He also criticized Colorado’s signature-verification process and backed a voter-ID requirement. Gonzalez said signature checks are sufficient and that Colorado already requires voter identification. Gonzalez asked Wiley whether he would accept the November results if she won. He said he would prefer to return to his private life if defeated, but would need what he considered sufficient accountability and evidence that the election was trustworthy before accepting the outcome. He did not commit to accepting information he had not yet received. Wiley also argued that counties shoulder most election costs, saying less than half a percent of election funding comes from the state. He pledged to visit county clerks and support local officials seeking to move to hand-counted elections. Gonzalez said her county-level experience has helped her build relationships with election officials and understand their needs. She opposed allowing counties to use substantially different voting procedures, saying voters should have equal opportunities to participate regardless of where they live.