A HAVA complaint against Colorado’s secretary of state will be decided by that same office, with a federal deadline of May 21

DENVER — A Help America Vote Act complaint filed against the Colorado Secretary of State’s office is set to be decided by the Secretary of State’s office, and the federally mandated deadline for that decision is Thursday, May 21, 2026.

The complaint, an “Administrative Complaint and Petition Under the Help America Vote Act of 2002,” was date-stamped received by the Secretary of State’s Elections Division on Feb. 20, 2026. It names Secretary of State Jena Griswold, the state’s chief election official, as respondent, and was filed by Michael Cahoon and Peter Bernegger. It is brought under Title III of HAVA, Section 402 of the act, codified at 52 U.S.C. § 21112, and Colorado’s implementing statute, C.R.S. § 1-1.5-105.

This article sets the merits of the allegations aside and examines who decides them. By the design of federal law, the same office named in a HAVA complaint is the office statutorily required to adjudicate it.

What the law requires

HAVA Section 402 requires every state that accepts HAVA funds to maintain its own administrative procedure for resolving complaints about Title III violations. Under the statute, “the State shall make a final determination with respect to a complaint prior to the expiration of the 90-day period which begins on the date the complaint is filed,” unless the complainant agrees to more time. If the state misses that deadline, the complaint “shall be resolved within 60 days under alternative dispute resolution procedures.” A hearing on the record is available at the complainant’s request.

In Colorado, that state authority is the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State’s published HAVA complaint process states that “the Secretary of State investigates and resolves violations of Title III of the Help America Vote Act” and cites C.R.S. § 1-1.5-105 as the implementing statute. The complaint document itself acknowledges this, stating that jurisdiction over it “rests with the Colorado Secretary of State” and that the Secretary of State must issue a final determination within 90 days.

The office named as respondent is the office assigned to rule on the complaint against it. That structure is built into HAVA itself. Congress routed Title III complaints to each state’s chief election official, so a complaint against that official’s office is still decided by that official’s office.

The 90-day clock

The arithmetic is exact. The complaint was received Feb. 20, 2026. Ninety calendar days later is Thursday, May 21, 2026. That is the date by which the Secretary of State’s office must issue a final determination under 52 U.S.C. § 21112, and it is the date the office’s decision is due.

As of this writing, the Secretary of State’s office has not ruled on the complaint. No determination had been published as of May 18, 2026.

Who filed it

The complaint was filed by Michael Cahoon and Peter Bernegger and is associated with Unite4Freedom, formerly United Sovereign Americans; Bernegger is associated with the Wisconsin Center for Election Justice. Unite4Freedom’s litigation page lists the “February 20, 2026 Colorado HAVA Complaint” and links the filing directly, corroborating the date and the filing organization.

The group and the individuals behind it have a contested history in Colorado. A September 2024 federal mandamus suit brought by the group, then named United Sovereign Americans, and two Colorado voters, including Cahoon, was characterized by Griswold as “a sham lawsuit filed by election deniers as a part of a national campaign to undermine voter confidence,” Colorado Newsline reported. Unite4Freedom describes itself on its litigation page as an all-volunteer organization; the same Newsline report described the group as a “fringe conservative group repeating debunked claims of widespread fraud.” The substantive allegations in the February complaint are the complainants’ allegations; they have not been adjudicated, and the Secretary of State has not ruled. The Kim Monson Newsroom reported the substance of those allegations in March.

A separate matter should not be conflated with this one. In December 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Griswold over her refusal to hand over unredacted statewide voter registration data, a federal court action Colorado Newsline reported that invokes the National Voting Rights Act and HAVA. That DOJ lawsuit is a different proceeding from the February 2026 state administrative HAVA complaint and is not the subject of the May 21 deadline.

On the show

The complaint and the conflict were discussed May 18 on The Kim Monson Show with guest Susan Harris, an Arizona-based election-integrity advocate. Monson noted that the complaint is against the Secretary of State’s office and that the office deciding it is the Secretary of State’s office, and said on air that she had watched proceedings she described as a hearing the prior week.

Harris addressed the structure directly. “That’s an obvious conflict of interest, which is not being addressed,” she said on The Kim Monson Show. She added that it is “baffling and very frustrating when you try to push back and then there’s this giant conflict of interest right in front of everyone.” Harris also raised a broader concern about election transparency, saying “it is very shocking to me that there is so little transparency about what goes on in our elections.”

In the interest of disclosure: Kim Monson has publicly promoted and helped raise money for the election work of Unite4Freedom and the Wisconsin Center for Election Justice in Colorado. In 2024, Monson’s Colorado election project raised over $100,000 to fund earlier litigation and a further analysis of the state’s voter rolls; that effort predates and is separate from the February 2026 HAVA complaint. The Harris family is a sponsor of the show.