{"id":40636,"date":"2022-05-13T11:45:43","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T17:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-secretary-of-state-race-will-test-embrace-of-conspiracies\/"},"modified":"2022-05-13T17:45:43","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T17:45:43","slug":"colorado-secretary-of-state-race-will-test-embrace-of-conspiracies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/colorado-secretary-of-state-race-will-test-embrace-of-conspiracies\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado secretary of state race will test embrace of conspiracies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mesa
Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who was indicted in March on 11 felony and misdemeanor charges related to allegations she and others tampered with secure voting equipment and software, talks to well-wishers at a rally staged to voice concerns about free and fair elections on the west steps of the state Capitol on April 5 in downtown Denver. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski, File)<\/span>David Zalubowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

LITTLETON \u2013 A handful of curious voters mingled on a suburban Denver brewpub\u2019s patio one recent evening as Pam Anderson told them she could restore professionalism to the office of Colorado secretary of state.<\/p>\n

Anderson rattled off her resume \u2013 former county clerk, head of the state clerks\u2019 association and ardent defender of Colorado\u2019s mail voting system \u2013 making clear that she fit the profile of the sort of technocrat whom Republicans used to back for the top election post in Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m the only person in this election, including the primary, who has a real record in election integrity,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Anderson was taking a swipe at her better-known primary rival, Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has become the prime example of the GOP\u2019s new approach to running elections.<\/p>\n

A grand jury earlier this year indicted <\/a>Peters for her role in breaking into her own county\u2019s election system during a hunt for evidence of conspiracy theories fanned by former President Donald Trump. A judge already barred Peters from running last year\u2019s local elections due to the controversy and this week blocked Peters from administering this year\u2019s, too<\/a>. Still, she\u2019s become a heroine to those who disbelieve the actual results of the 2020 elections.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve taken their best shot. They made me sleep on the concrete jail floor for 30 hours because I protected your election data,\u201d Peters told a crowd of 3,000 GOP activists and officials at the state party\u2019s convention last month. \u201cThey know who to be afraid of.\u201d Sixty percent of attendees voted to place her atop the ballot for secretary of state in their June 28 primary.<\/p>\n

For nearly a century, U.S. elections have relied on a sort of partisan truce. They are run by thousands of local officials, often elected in partisan races, and usually overseen by secretaries of state who run statewide along with candidates for hotly contested offices like attorney general and governor. But, typically, election administration itself has been done in a nonpartisan manner, and those who run for positions overseeing it are more technocrats than crusaders.<\/p>\n

That is changing after Trump\u2019s 2020 loss. The former president is recruiting a class of partisan secretary of state candidates <\/a>who parrot his lies about losing the election due to fraud and argue he should have remained president. The contest between Peters \u2014 she joined Trump at his Florida headquarters of Mar-a-Lago last week \u2014 and Anderson is perhaps the starkest battle in the GOP between those traditions.<\/p>\n

The two candidates faced off Thursday night in a debate held by a Republican group in suburban Denver. They were joined by the third GOP contender in the race, businessman Mike O\u2019Donnell, but most of the energy came from the clash between Anderson and Peters. The room was split between supporters of the two candidates who would sometimes grumble when the other spoke.<\/p>\n

\"Pam
Pam Anderson, who is competing for the nomination from the Republican Party to run for the job of Colorado's secretary of state, is shown in her office Tuesday, May 10, 2022, in southeast Denver. Anderson is slated to take part in a debate with her two competitors for the party's nomination\u2014Tina Peters and Mike O'Donnell, who are both election deniers\u2014on Thursday. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/span>David Zalubowski<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

There\u2019s no question that the election deniers are winning the fight within the Republican Party. In Michigan last month, Kristina Karamo, a community college professor endorsed by Trump, won the GOP nomination to run for secretary of state after fanning suspicion of the 2020 election results. Candidates with similar stances are running in GOP primaries in every swing state, including for secretary of state in Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.<\/p>\n

An Associated Press-NORC poll<\/a> last year found that two-thirds of Republicans doubt Biden was legitimately elected president. Trump continues to fan the myth that massive voter fraud swung the election. He and his supporters have lost more than 60 court cases trying to demonstrate such fraud. His own Justice Department, along with numerous other investigations and audits, found no significant fraud.<\/p>\n

Though Trump\u2019s election denial has caught on among the party\u2019s rank and file, many GOP strategists fear it could backfire on them in November. In Colorado, some Republicans dread the idea of Peters on the general election ballot.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Democrats are going to love it and do everything they can to make every Republican candidate look like they came from the same DNA as Tina Peters,\u201d said Scott McInnis, a former GOP congressman who is now on the Mesa County Commission.<\/p>\n

McInnis and other Republican Mesa County commissioners have long clashed with Peters. The local district attorney, a Republican, is overseeing her prosecution. McInnis predicts that Anderson will win the primary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think Republican voters are going to vote for someone who has nine felony charges,\u201d McInnis said of Peters.<\/p>\n

Still, the enthusiasm for Peters in some parts of the GOP is considerable. She raised $158,000 in the eight weeks since she announced her campaign, compared to $50,000 by Anderson, who reported only having $5,000 left on hand at the end of April. At the state GOP convention, one of a bevy of aspirants for governor won enough votes from the crowd to secure a spot on the primary ballot simply by promising to pardon Peters if elected.<\/p>\n

\u201cI agree with what she did. I don\u2019t think she did anything illegal,\u201d said Pam Utterback, 67, an ordained minister who banged on a drum appreciatively as Peters spoke at a pre-convention rally in Denver.<\/p>\n

Peters flew to the rally with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, at whose election conspiracy seminar she spoke last year after the data breach in Mesa County election machines. That data soon appeared on election conspiracy websites and Lindell insists it proves massive, internationally run fraud that put President Joe Biden in office. He told reporters he\u2019s paid $800,000 to Peters\u2019 legal defense fund.<\/p>\n

Peters\u2019 legal jeopardy extends beyond the charges of identity theft, attempting to influence a public official and criminal impersonation filed by the grand jury. She was also arrested after kicking at a police officer trying to serve a search warrant for her iPad, to see if Peters had illegally recorded a court hearing of a deputy accused of burglary and cybercrimes.<\/p>\n

Peters\u2019 supporters are convinced she\u2019s a martyr for the cause. Even if they can\u2019t explain precisely what it is Peters claims to have uncovered, they\u2019re convinced something went wrong in 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the reason everyone is attacking her is she\u2019s for election integrity,\u201d said Adrianna Cuva, 45, a volunteer for a Peters-affiliated candidate who has met Peters. \u201cI think the election was rigged. That\u2019s why we\u2019re seeing all these problems in our economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a stark contrast with the sentiment at the brewpub in the Denver suburb of Littleton, where the small group of Anderson supporters stressed the importance of competent, nonpartisan election administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s what you want, someone who\u2019s played it straight,\u201d said Paul Schauer, a former Republican state legislator.<\/p>\n

Anderson grew up in Southern California. Her father was a highway patrolman, part of a long line of law enforcement in a family that\u2019s instilled in Anderson a reverence for law enforcement. She was elected clerk of the suburban city of Wheat Ridge in 2003 and then of the suburban swing county around it the following year.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s been witheringly critical of Trump\u2019s election lies since they began in 2020 and sits on the board of a nonprofit that distributed $350 million in donations from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife to help fund the 2020 elections, an act that fueled conservative suspicions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to restore sanity,\u201d Anderson said in an interview.<\/p>\n

But she also got into the race because of frustration with the Democratic secretary of state, Jena Griswold, who she contends has politicized the office for Democrats.<\/p>\n

And Anderson has been frustrated at how Griswold and other Democrats attack Republicans as a party for election misinformation. She cites some Republicans who have stood up for truth and nonpartisanship in election administration. One is Stephen Richer, the clerk in Arizona\u2019s Maricopa County, who pushed back strongly against a conspiratorial, Trump-supported pseudo-audit of the election.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are Republicans across the country fighting the good fight on elections,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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