Tina Peters is not a hero nor a heroine. The onetime former Mesa County Clerk and far-right conspiracy theorist and ‘election denier,’ is a criminal and a felon. Despite the president’s calls to free her (Herald, May 6), she should remain in prison.
In August, a 12-member jury of Mesa County residents found Peters guilty of seven of ten counts, including four felonies, for helping to facilitate unauthorized access to the county’s voting equipment. As county clerk, that equipment was hers to safeguard. Instead, she engaged in a security breach to advance a conspiracy theory of election fraud.
It’s quite stunning. Peters argues she did nothing wrong by allowing an unauthorized person who used someone else’s identity to access election equipment in her office.
Mesa County incurred significant costs in resources and reputation, upwards of $1.4 million, as a result of her actions. After an investigation was launched, Peters continued to receive her salary as she traveled the country while the county conducted a costly and time-consuming recount of ballots in 2022 that showed no difference between machine and hand counts. The county also had to hire a designated election official and extra law enforcement during her trial and sentencing.
According to an article in Colorado Newsline, a Republican Mesa County Commissioner said the biggest cost was to Mesa County’s reputation. “She’s made a laughingstock of this community,” he said.
Peters is now serving nine years in prison in Pueblo’s La Vista Correctional Facility and despite what her supporters say – the president among them – she fundamentally caused immeasurable harm to local elections and trust in the electoral process. She should remain there as the judge and jury intended.
The jury arrived at its verdict unanimously.
The irony is thick, of course. The president is also a convicted criminal with 34 felony counts against him of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 hush money payment to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic film star and former stripper, to affect the 2016 election outcome. In that trial, one year ago this month, the 12-member jury also unanimously arrived at its guilty verdict.
The president is good at ALL CAP sound bite social media posts and coined the now infamous “Stop the Steal” slogan that became a movement with rallies and protesters spreading false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. Peters served as a standard-bearer for that message harming her co-workers, her community and most of all elections.
Neither election conspiracy groups nor Peters’ defense attorneys have ever been able to demonstrate that the Mesa County machines were used in any type of election or voter fraud scheme. In both of their cases, Peters and the president pleaded not guilty and denied any wrong doing. Both were convicted.
This week, La Plata County Clerk Tiffany Lee said Peters absolutely deserved jail time for what she did. Lee said she, staff and election judges work incredibly hard to do everything perfectly, to follow the laws. Lee is very concerned about what might happen if Peters’ conviction is overturned or changed in anyway.
Monday night, the president directed the U.S. Department of Justice to, “Take all necessary action to help secure the release of former Mesa county clerk Tina Peters.” The Herald’s editorial board stands firmly for the rule of law and rejects this attempt at a miscarriage of justice.
Tina Peters is guilty and should remain in prison.
