The trial of a former Colorado elections official for her efforts to combat voter fraud is set to begin Monday.
Tina Peters, who served as Mesa County Clerk and Recorder from January 2019 to January 2023, is being prosecuted by the Colorado Attorney General’s Office seven feesincluding crimes related to alleged election manipulation, abuse of power and attempts to influence public officials in 2021. She is accused of allowing an unauthorized third party to make copies of the voting machine strenuous drives, which led to the “publication on the internet of confidential digital images” of Dominion Voting Systems’ assets and passwords, prosecutors said.
Peters (pictured above) was targeted by officials after a Dominion server backup in Mesa County. She said she believes she found evidence of tampering with the local 2021 city council elections and the 2020 general election. Four progressive candidates for Mesa City Council won their races, which was a surprise, she said, even for the candidates, since the area is 65 percent Republican and 35 percent Democratic.
According to statement Peters filed a motion in court on Nov. 24, 2023, that the controversy began when voters notified her of election irregularities they were concerned about, and at the same time, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold directed her to participate in the installation of a software update known as “Trusted Build” on Mesa County’s election management system (EMS).
After speaking with a Dominion Election Systems employee, Peters said she learned the update would “remove the QR code system that allows the system to read some ballots,” which was concerning because it would “make it impossible” to verify the 2020 and 2021 election results. She said she confirmed that would happen to a Griswold employee.
Additionally, Peters was concerned that the modernization would violate state and federal law. Federal law requires that election documentation be retained for 22 months after the election, and Colorado State Law requires maintenance for 25 months. Violation of federal law is a crime.
Peters said she didn’t trust Griswold because she was a partisan Democrat whose office “cooperated” with the Peters recall effort. She said that “hiring a consultant to perform a forensic image of the EMS server was lawful.” She said that “Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Beall admitted under oath in a separate case involving a different county official that performing a forensic image of the EMS server was lawful at the time it was performed.”
She allowed her consultant to exploit an employee ID badge and said an employee supervised him, as required by law.
Peters advocated for an alternative electoral system to Dominion, Clear Ballot, because “[t]The system cannot be audited as required by federal law.” On September 17, 2021, she sent a letter to the Mesa County Board asking to stop using Dominion, attaching an 85-page document forensic report from cybersecurity expert Doug Gould. Gould said there was “extensive” “destruction of critical log files.”
Peters said she has faced repression since then. Since October 2021, she has not been allowed to see her husband at a memory care facility and was told she did not have power of attorney. The FBI executed search warrants on her and her associates in November 2021, seizing equipment that was never returned.
In February 2022, she turned herself in after being charged with hindering the execution of a search warrant when her father was near death. She said she was not allowed to approach him, and he died while she was in jail. Because of bond restrictions, she was unable to continue working as a clerk. She said Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein was able to prevent her from traveling out of state due to her work on election integrity.
Rubenstein charged Peters and her deputy, Belinda Knisley, in March 2022. She said she believed it was “politically motivated” because it happened 22 days after she announced she was challenging Griswold for secretary of state. Seven days later, she delivered another request to county commissioners to eliminate computer voting systems.
On this day March 1, 2022 lettersaid a second forensic investigation showed that “vote counts could easily be altered.” Contrary to claims that the voting system could not connect to the internet, Gould said that “the Mesa County voting system alone contained thirty-six (36) wireless devices and the system was configured to allow ‘any computer in the world’ to connect to our EMS server.”
Third forensic examination investigation found “unauthorized creation of new election databases” during the 2020 and 2022 elections. It found that thousands of digital ballot images were not copied to the novel databases. Rubenstein released findings rebutting the third investigation, which Peters responded to Here.
Peters said in her statement that Rubenstein convinced the judge to exclude evidence at her trial that “reveals problems in the voting system,” so she doesn’t believe she can get a fair trial. In addition, Peters’ defense attorney, John Case, he said CPR News This Grand Junction Daily Sentinel has written more than “700 articles” about Peters, “and they’re all negative. So we feel like we’re starting with a biased group of jurors.”
Knisley was also charged with six similar counts. In August 2022, Kinsley Agreement testify against Peters as part of a plea deal. She pleaded guilty to misdemeanors and avoided solitary confinement, receiving two years of unsupervised probation and 250 hours of community service.
X owner Elon Musk has taken an interest in the matter. An election integrity investigator has prepared video with his Cybertruck — Musk is CEO of Tesla, which recently began offering an electric Cybertruck — holding up a copy of the election data that Peters had kept and asking Musk to exploit his engineers to examine the code to find flaws.
Musk he replied“I’m not sure how to help.” Peters he replied to him, indicating that the recent Crowdstrike Internet outage caused the company to recommend similar action to what Peters took — backing up the database. She included podcaster CannConn fastingwhich stated that “CrowdStrike’s solution to the ‘outage’ problem is, @realtinapeters He faces prison time next week.”
@elonmusk @BehizyTweets @yehuda_miller https://t.co/rGBzhgKA7C
— Tina Peters🇺🇸 Fallen Navy SEAL whistleblower (@realtinapeters) July 23, 2024
Fox News settled a defamation lawsuit against Dominion last year for $787 million, the largest defamation verdict in history, a lawyer familiar with the case said Arizona Sun Times that Fox News settled because the judge specifically stated, in response to summary judgment motions, that the jury would be instructed to treat the statements by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell as false.
Peter he spoke to the Arizona group in September 2022, including a screening of a documentary about her experiences, Selection codeThe trial will be held in Mesa County Courtroom 9 with District Court Judge Matthew Barrett presiding. A review hearing is scheduled for July 29 at 9:00 a.m., and a jury trial is scheduled to begin July 30 at 9:00 a.m. and conclude on August 12. WesternSlopeNow he said will broadcast the trial live. More information about the trial can be found on the website Free Tinaand her personal website is Here.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at This Arizona Sun Times AND Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email Tips [email protected].
“Tina Peters” photo provided by Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.
