A former Colorado county clerk who promoted 2020 election conspiracy theories was sentenced Thursday to nine years behind bars after being convicted of charges including official misconduct in connection with a security breach of Mesa County’s voting system.
Tina Peters was convicted of four felony and three misdemeanor charges in August for using another person’s security badge to allow someone associated with MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, a prominent election denier and ally of former President Donald Trump, access to county election equipment involving Dominion Voting Systems.
The county’s machines had to be replaced afterwards when data, including passwords for the machines, was posted online. Peters claimed she didn’t know the information would become public.
“Your lies are well-documented and these convictions are serious,” Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters before he handed down his sentence for the 2021 security breach, calling her a “charlatan” who used her time in office “to peddle snake oil.”
The judge told Peters she had no consideration for how her lies had harmed her county and her colleagues. "The damage is immeasurable," Barrett said. "I'm convinced you would do it all over again if you could."
He said every time one of her conspiratorial claims "gets refuted, shown to be false, another tale is weaved."
"You're as defiant a defendant as I've ever seen," Barrett said.
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Peters was "a fox guarding the henhouse," prosecutor Jessica Drake said in her closing argument in August. "It was her job to protect the election equipment, and she turned on it and used her power for her own advantage."
Peters maintains she did nothing wrong.
"It is with a heavy heart that I hear the vile accusations and anger levied against me for what I did to protect the people of Mesa County," she told the judge before being sentenced. Peters said she was simply trying to preserve information to make sure the election was secure, and asked the judge to sentence her to probation.
Matt Crane, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, told the judge there were legal avenues she could have used to preserve the information she wanted without engaging in a "treacherous" scheme. He said her actions cost the county more than $1 million.
Citing her lack of remorse, District Attorney Daniel Rubinstein asked the judge to impose the maximum sentence, without specifying what that would be. He also noted that despite her claims of widespread fraud, she never identified a single bogus vote.
County officials said Peters' continued fraudulent election claims also led to a slew of death threats against election workers while she traveled the country promoting her claims and ignored her professional duties. Peters disputed that account and said she called in to the office when she was not in the state.
The judge on Thursday told her "it’s my impression you never took your job as clerk particularly seriously," noting she never finished her election training after she got the post. "At bottom, it's all about you," he said, blasting what he said was her belief that "the echo chamber you live in could not be wrong."
Peters ran for Colorado secretary of state in 2022 after she was indicted. She was defeated in the Republican primary and alleged election fraud in that race, demanding a recount after losing by 85,000 votes. The recount resulted in her getting an additional 13 votes — as did the overall primary winner, Pam Anderson.
