Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler told a conservative audience Thursday that his critics really don't care about voter fraud and are "willing to lie" and "play the racism card."

Gessler, a Republican, made his comments during a panel discussion Thursday titled, "Stealing Elections: What the Left Doesn't Want You to Know About Voter Fraud," held at a gathering of the Conservative Political Action Conference in Denver. CPAC events regularly draw big names on the right, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney even made a surprise visit Friday to the conference, held at a hotel near I-70 and Chambers Road.

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The secretary of state appeared on the voter fraud panel along with representatives of several conservative organizations, including True the Vote, a highly controversial group that styles itself as an elections integrity organization but which critics say uses voter intimidation tactics.

Gessler has come under fire for suggesting over a year ago that there were more than 11,000 noncitizens registered in Colorado but then only being able to identify recently 141 suspected non-citizens registered to vote. And of those, only 35 suspected noncitizens had actually voted in an election at some point.

At least one of those voters is a U.S. citizen.

Gessler, though, said he believes there are many more noncitizens and his search continues. He said those on the left just don't care if people are legally eligible to vote or not.

"They (the left) don't care if they (would-be voters) are non-citizens," he told hundreds in the audience. "They'll register them to vote, and if that noncitizen registers and then votes, they suffer serious consequences -- criminal prosecution, loss of the ability to ever become a citizen -- but the voter registration drive never suffers any of those consequences.

"So, I think they're very happy to manipulate people into believing it's OK to ignore these laws."

He added that the left tries to generate hatred, "to sort of manipulate people to get them angry against a make-believe enemy that doesn't exist in an effort to win votes, to demonize, frankly, people who are conservative and believe in limited government."

Gessler continued, "This is the tool they use, and of course the ultimate card they play is the racism card. And they are more than willing to lie to do this."

A spokeswoman for a coalition of voter rights groups that includes left-leaning groups like Common Cause and Colorado Ethics Watch said Gessler's comments were shocking.

"This guy is so bad, I don't even know what to say," Ellen Dumm said. "He has been so divisive from day one and so partisan. If this was a Democrat speaking to the ACLU and said something like that, it would be heresy -- he would be having a news conference in apoplexy."

Dumm added, "His make-believe enemy is noncitizens voting, and we haven't found one."