Secretary of State Mike Coffman has demoted an elections worker and longtime political ally who operated a side business selling voter information for mainly Republican interests.

Coffman's office announced Wednesday that Dan Kopelman has been moved to a new job in the elections division and is no longer a supervisor. In addition, his $85,000 salary was cut by $9,240.

In his campaign to become Colorado's secretary of state, Mike Coffman pledged to uphold the integrity of an office that had been diminished by partisan rulemaking under previous occupants.

It was the right thing to say, and it's the right thing to do. Unfortunately, he hasn't practiced what he preached. Coffman misfired by hiring a political activist with a GOP consulting business as the state's elections technology manager.

The salary of a state election worker accused of selling voter data through a personal website is being docked by $9,240, Secretary of State Mike Coffman said Wednesday.

Elections technology manager Daniel Kopelman also is prohibited from engaging in any outside business without permission, and he can no longer work on the re-certification of electronic voting systems.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman on Tuesday asked the state auditor to investigate allegations that one of his elections workers was selling voter data through a personal website.

Coffman said an initial probe by his office found that the worker, elections technology manager Mike Kopelman, conducted outside activities "incompatible" with his job.

DENVER — Secretary of State Mike Coffman has asked the state auditor to investigate allegations that one of his elections workers was selling voter data through a personal Web site in violation of rules for state employees.

Coffman said Tuesday an investigation by his office determined that the worker, elections technology man-ager Dan Kopelman, had outside activities incompatible with his job, but he found no evidence Kopelman wrongfully accessed or sold state data.

After a humiliating public censure by a disciplinary panel last December, we had hoped that suburban District Attorney Carol Chambers would fly a straight and narrow course. So it's disquieting, to say the least, to find her at the center of another ethical controversy.

Secretary of State Mike Coffman said Friday his office is investigating whether one of its employees violated department rules by not disclosing he was operating a political Web site as a side business.

The decision to launch the investigation into Dan Kopelman came after a blogger notified the Secretary of State's Office this week that he was operating a Web site, "Political Live Wires," while working in the elections division, Coffman said.

Colorado is on its way to creating an ethics commission, hopefully ending six months of utter confusion about what gifts elected officials and government workers can and cannot accept.

Gov. Bill Ritter signed a bill Thursday that supporters say brings clarity to Amendment 41.

GOLDEN - A routine request for the appointment of a special prosecutor to decide whether charges should be filed in a case involving Jefferson County Commissioner Jim Congrove apparently has led to a judge's order that could keep the results of the investigation from the public.

For more than two months, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has been looking into whether any laws were broken when Jefferson County, at Congrove's urging, hired his friend to investigate people involved in a lawsuit against Congrove and other county officials and employees.

A Jefferson County judge has issued a gag order in the ongoing investigation into whether county officials misused public funds to hire a private detective to spy on citizens and former employees.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has for weeks been investigating the county’s motives for hiring a private eye and friend of Commissioner Jim Congrove to spy on a county critic and others.

A plan to remove more than 117,000 Denver voters from active voter files because they didn't cast ballots in November or January is coming under fire.

Four nonprofits are urging the Denver Election Commission not to "scrub" voter files because voters listed as "inactive" won't receive a ballot in the mail for the May 1 municipal election.

A three-member Ethics Commission would investigate conflicts of interest and other ethical breaches under a new code of ethics given initial approval this week by the Colorado Springs City Council.

Under the city’s existing ethics code, adopted in 1994, allegations can be reviewed in a variety of ways, but City Attorney Patricia Kelly said there’s no consistency.

An investigation of Jeffco Commissioner Jim Congrove by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation is close to wrapping, Congrove claims. The CBI wouldn't confirm the status of the case.

But the commissioner is confident he will be vindicated against the accusations, he said earlier this week in a telephone interview.

The Adams County district attorney’s office has been named a special prosecutor in the ongoing investigation into whether Jefferson County officials acted inappropriately by hiring a friend of Commissioner Jim Congrove to spy on citizens and county employees.

“We are aware that the Adams County district attorney was appointed a special prosecutor in this case, and there is no additional role for us,” said Pam Russell, spokeswoman for the Jeffco DA’s office.

Commissioner Jim Congrove said he removed certain files from the county attorney’s office because he believed they would go “missing” from there, and that he kept them in his office until the Colorado Bureau of Investigation took them last week.

Congrove said he took several files “mostly” concerning county critic Mike Zinna, who was among the subjects of a questionable private investigation paid for by the county over a 16-month period.

GOLDEN - A Jefferson County commissioner and two of the county's attorneys weren't straightforward with investigators looking into the disappearance of legal files, a sheriff's report indicates.

Commissioner Jim Congrove, former County Attorney Frank Hutfless and former Assistant County Attorney Duncan Bradley provided answers that flew in the face of common knowledge about the missing documents and that contradict information given to detectives by other elected officials and county employees, the report says.

DENVER — A Senate panel on Wednesday backed a proposal to set up an independent ethics commission as required under a new ethics law passed by voters last fall.

The split over Colorado's new ethics law deepened Wednesday as a Senate panel passed a bill that would implement Amendment 41 without clarifying its "unintended consequences."

The State Affairs Committee voted 5-0 in favor of a bill that sets up an ethics panel to hear Amendment 41 complaints but does nothing to exempt situations such as scholarships for the children of government employees or donations to state workers who have lost a family member.

DENVER - A state lawmaker called on the Department of Corrections to rescind a contract for a private prison in Ault, saying the company failed to deliver on a previous contract and never should have been allowed to bid on the new 1,500-bed facility.

Rep. Buffie McFadyen, D-Pueblo West, said GEO Group lost its contract to build a detention facility in Pueblo because it delayed the start of construction, then tried to renegotiate its contract to get a guarantee that it would be paid for 90 percent occupancy, even if beds were not filled.

GOLDEN - Jefferson County officials' motives for hiring a private investigator are made murkier by his invoices showing he compiled information the county already had on hand.

The investigation, now the subject of a Colorado Bureau of Investigation inquiry, was conducted by private detective Daril Cinquanta, a close friend of County Commissioner Jim Congrove.