Tamper Proof
Plus: A new States United report. 🗳️
Published August 16, 2024
The conviction of Tina Peters proves two things: State and local officials take the security of election equipment extremely seriously. And anyone who tries to compromise that security will face the consequences.
Peters, the former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, was found guilty of tampering with voting equipment after the 2020 election in a vain effort to prove that the election was rigged against former President Trump. She’ll be sentenced in October.
Instead of protecting her county’s election equipment, Peters turned on it, prosecutors said. They said she allowed a man, introduced to her by Election Deniers and impersonating a county staff member, to plug an external device into the most sensitive election equipment in May 2021 so he could make copies to pass to a network of conspiracy theorists.
Key passwords from that county election equipment later turned up online, leading to investigations by Secretary of State Jena Griswold and the FBI. (The breached equipment was quickly taken out of service, and no election was compromised.)
Peters was stripped of her election responsibilities and indicted in 2022. She was convicted this week, by a jury of her peers, of four felonies and three misdemeanors.
“Today’s verdict is a warning to others that they will face serious consequences if they attempt to illegally tamper with our voting processes or election systems,” Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said after the conviction. “And make no mistake: My office will continue to protect it.”
Peters was after fame, according to prosecutors. They said she wanted to become a “hero” to fellow Election Deniers like pillow mogul Mike Lindell. Instead, she’ll go down as a cautionary tale—and she may go to prison.
This Week in Democracy
- Former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk and Election Denier Tina Peters was found guilty on seven counts related to her role in a 2021 breach of voting equipment. Peters, who also ran for Colorado secretary of state in 2022 and lost, was convicted by a jury of giving an associate of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell unauthorized access to the equipment.
- A bipartisan group of 14 experts, represented by States United, filed a brief arguing that the Georgia Court of Appeals should allow District Attorney Fani Willis to continue prosecuting the Georgia election interference case against Donald Trump and his allies. In March, Judge Scott McAfee denied a motion to disqualify Willis. The experts explained that Georgia law sets a high bar for disqualifying prosecutors and that Trump and his allies didn’t meet it.
➡️ READ: The Georgia charges, explained
- Americans believe in their elections and want to keep them free, fair, and secure, according to a new report released by States United. The report, which analyzed five surveys conducted over the past year, found that Americans trust the ways votes are cast and counted and don’t look favorably on candidates who claim the 2020 election was rigged.
➡️ EXPLORE: The full report
- A group of 22 U.S. senators urged the Justice Department to do more to protect poll workers and election officials ahead of the November elections. “Our election officials and workers are public servants working on the frontlines of our democracy to make sure that every vote is counted,” the senators wrote.
Recommended Reading
In a new column, former Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, former Republican U.S. Reps. Melissa Hart and Jim Gerlach, and former Democratic Pennsylvania House Speaker Keith McCall, bipartisan board members of the Democracy Defense Project, praise Secretary Al Schmidt for the work he’s doing to make sure Pennsylvania’s elections are smooth, secure, and fair.
