He reported election irregularities. Weeks later he was fired: Now a Colorado fire chief appeals in federal court

By Jen Schumann | Rocky Mountain Voice

Erik Holt says he didn’t expect reviewing surveillance footage from a polling location inside the Florissant fire station would cost him his career.

Holt says the fallout came quickly. Within weeks of providing investigators the footage he believed showed election rule violations, he was out of a job.

The dispute that began inside the Florissant fire station is now before the federal appeals court. Judges will review whether reporting suspected wrongdoing can cost a public employee his job.

Holt is no longer fighting the appeal alone. Mountain States Legal Foundation has joined the case and is now representing him.

“Public employees do not surrender their First Amendment rights when they take a government job,” said Grady Block, an attorney with Mountain States Legal Foundation. “Erik wasn’t fired for being a bad fire chief. He was fired for being a witness on a matter of public concern.”

The evidence Holt says he uncovered

Residents had begun raising questions about the May 2023 special district election. Holt responded by going back through the surveillance system at the Florissant fire station, where voting had taken place.

Holt said the review eventually stretched past 40 hours of footage.

In Holt’s account, the footage showed poll watchers interacting with voters, opening ballot envelopes and using electronic counters while ballots were being tabulated.

To track what he believed he was seeing, Holt created a spreadsheet listing the incidents, the time stamps and the state rules he believed had been broken before giving the material to investigators.

On May 19, 2023, Holt sat down with an investigator from the Fourth Judicial District Attorney’s Office and handed over the footage along with the spreadsheet he had prepared.

In notes from that investigation—records Holt later obtained through an open records request—the investigator wrote that it was “clear to me that election violations have taken place.”

The case investigation later closed without charges.

RMV previously examined the events surrounding Holt’s firing and the investigation into the alleged election violations in two earlier reports, including “Clear on camera, dismissed on paper”and “What unfolded during the uncertified transition.”

The moment Holt says everything changed

Holt says he understood early on that looking into the election could carry serious consequences.

“I knew from the moment that I even made the decision to look into it that my livelihood was in danger,” he said.

Before the dispute reached the courts, Holt had spent most of his career in public service.

He served in the Army and later spent more than a decade working as a firefighter at Fort Carson before becoming fire chief in Florissant.

A single father raising two daughters, Holt said the legal fight that followed cost him his career and forced him to sell his home to pay legal fees.

About a month after he gave investigators the footage and his notes, Holt was fired.

He later sued in federal court, arguing the district fired him for speaking up.

A case that reaches beyond one fire district

A federal district judge later dismissed Holt’s lawsuit, determining that his actions were tied to his role as fire chief.

That finding meant Holt’s speech was not protected by the First Amendment.

Holt said the ruling ignores how the investigation actually happened.

“I did all of the investigation on my own time, not at work,” he said. “How would a judge deem that to be an official duty? It makes no logical sense.”

“The appeal goes so far beyond my case,” Holt said. “It’s literally a constitutional question.”

If public employees lose First Amendment protection whenever their work exposes potential wrongdoing, Holt said, others may hesitate to speak up.

“It protects future public servants, plain and simple,” he said.

Why the legal foundation took the case

Mountain States Legal Foundation later agreed to represent Holt in the appeal.

Holt said the connection came after he began speaking publicly about the case while preparing the appeal on his own.

“I filed my appeal pro se and started telling the story,” Holt said. Interviews and legal contacts eventually connected him with attorneys affiliated with the foundation.

According to Holt, the group focused on the constitutional implications of the district court’s ruling.

“Their thing is constitutional law and defending rights,” he said.

The organization’s filing argues the lower court wrongly treated Holt’s actions as part of his official job duties. Holt’s lawyers are trying to get the case back in front of a jury. 

The Tenth Circuit will soon weigh in on Holt’s case.

Holt said he plans to attend the hearing himself—“just a normal person sitting in the gallery”—when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit hears the case March 17 in Denver.

The appeal now moves forward

The next step now rests with the appellate court, which will determine whether Holt’s lawsuit moves forward or whether the earlier dismissal stands.

Holt says the fight has never been only about the job he lost. Asked if he’d still report the footage if he understood then all that would happen afterwards, he didn’t pause. 

“Unequivocally, it’s the right thing to do.”