The secretary of state of Colorado is the secretary of state of the state of Colorado in the United States. The office is one of five elected constitutional offices in the

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

. The current secretary of state is Democrat Jena Griswold.

Structure

The Secretary of State heads the Colorado Department of State, a principal department of the Colorado state government, which is composed of four divisions: *Business & Licensing Division: Files documents for certain

business organizations A business entity is an entity that is formed and administered as per corporate law in order to engage in business activities, charitable work, or other activities allowable. Most often, business entities are formed to sell a product or a serv ...

and business names; files

trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

s for certain business entities; registers

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a form of intellectual property that consists of a word, phrase, symbol, design, or a combination that identifies a Good (economics and accounting), product or Service (economics), service f ...

s, and files financing statements and notices of security interests in agricultural products pursuant to the

Uniform Commercial Code The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been established as law with the goal of harmonizing the laws of sales and other commercial transactions across the United States through U ...

, federal

tax lien A tax lien is a lien which is imposed upon a property by law in order to secure the payment of taxes. A tax lien may be imposed for the purpose of collecting delinquent taxes which are owed on real property or personal property, or it may be i ...

s; and other miscellaneous statutory

lien A lien ( or ) is a form of security interest granted over an item of property to secure the payment of a debt or performance of some other obligation. The owner of the property, who grants the lien, is referred to as the ''lienee'' and the pers ...

s; performs searches of those records; provides copies of filed documents; issues related certificates; and provides pertinent educational services. Issues bingo/ raffle licenses and inspects facilities and operations of these games to ensure compliance with bingo/raffle laws; commissions and regulates notaries public; registers

charitable organization A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, Religion, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good). The legal definitio ...

s that solicit contributions in Colorado and their professional fundraisers; publishes the Colorado administrative rules code and register, and provides rulemaking guidance for state agencies. *Elections Division: Supervises elections, maintains the statewide

voter registration In electoral systems, voter registration (or enrollment) is the requirement that a person otherwise Suffrage, eligible to Voting, vote must register (or enroll) on an electoral roll, which is usually a prerequisite for being entitled or permitted ...

file, verifies initiative petition signatures, and administers the

campaign finance Campaign financealso called election finance, political donations, or political financerefers to the funds raised to promote candidates, political parties, or policy initiatives and referendums. Donors and recipients include individuals, corpor ...

laws; and serves as the filing office for unincorporated communities and for

conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple wikt:interest#Noun, interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates t ...

disclosure statements. *Administration Division: Provides management and central support services for the Department of State such as

budgeting A budget is a calculation plan, usually but not always financial plan, financial, for a defined accounting period, period, often one year or a month. A budget may include anticipated sales volumes and revenues, resource quantities including tim ...

accounting Accounting, also known as accountancy, is the process of recording and processing information about economic entity, economic entities, such as businesses and corporations. Accounting measures the results of an organization's economic activit ...

, and

human resources Human resources (HR) is the set of people who make up the workforce of an organization, business sector, industry, or economy. A narrower concept is human capital, the knowledge and skills which the individuals command. Similar terms include ' ...

; monitors the use of the state seal,History and Usage of the Colorado State Seal
certifies the interest rate on appealed money

judgments Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to Decision-making, make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context o ...

, files acts passed by the General Assembly, and conveys information within the office to the public; plans and monitors legislation that affects the Department of State; responds to inquiries from the press and public; licenses entities that circulate petitions; and registers lobbyists. *Information Technology Division: Supports the

information systems An information system (IS) is a formal, sociotechnical, organizational system designed to collect, process, store, and distribute information. From a sociotechnical perspective, information systems comprise four components: task, people, structu ...

needs of the entire secretary of state's office. Maintains the departmental infrastructure consisting of multiple servers, personal computers, networking equipment, firewall, telephony, peripherals, and other information technology equipment to support the data and imaging needs of the department. Also supports the web presence of the secretary of state.

Secretaries of the Territory of Colorado

Secretaries of the State of Colorado

Notes

References

External links