Election denier issue creates Colorado political controversy

It’s entirely possible — as hard as it may be to conceive in these deeply tribal, us-vs.-them times — for two competing notions to be true. Tina Peters personally enriched herself and betrayed the public trust by perpetrating a harebrained scheme to “prove” the 2020 election in Mesa County, Colorado, was rigged against President Donald Trump.

The former county clerk and MAGA warrior deserved to go to jail. But the nine-year sentence she received was unduly harsh and, according to an appeals court decision, improperly meted out as punishment for the false and reckless public statements Peters made, a clear violation of her First Amendment rights. The court kicked the case back for resentencing.

That’s when Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, stepped in. And stepped in it. Over the strenuous objection of fellow Democrats and many Republicans — including Peters’ prosecutor and a majority of Colorado’s election clerks — Polis commuted her sentence, clearing the way for Peters’ parole on June 1 after less than two years in prison.

Which just goes to show three wrongs don’t make a right. Peters, 70, was convicted on multiple criminal counts, four of them felonies, for conspiring to let an unauthorised person access supposedly compromised voting equipment. She then lied to cover up her actions.

Trump carried Mesa County, a conservative stronghold, by nearly 30 percentage points, making Peters’ actions — apart from illegal — unaccountably stupid. But her conniving made her a belle of Mar-a-Lago and a celebrity on the election-denial circuit, jetting around the country and spewing cockamamie conspiracy theories. Trump loudly agitated for her release.

His corrupted Justice Department sought to get Peters sprung from Colorado prison, presumably to set her loose from a federal facility. The president issued a symbolic “pardon,” though Peters’ conviction on state charges put her beyond his crooked reach. Trump insulted and belittled Polis, suggesting, among other things, he “rot in hell.” More significantly, the vengeful president waged economic war against Colorado. Among the retributive acts, Trump slashed federal funds earmarked for the state, closed a climate research centre in Boulder and moved the US Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Alabama.

Polis, who has a broad libertarian streak, insisted his freeing of Peters was not a capitulation to Trump, but rather a matter of principle, which seems plausible to the extent the governor could have anticipated the unshirted hell he’s gotten from fellow Democrats. Among the great many infuriated by Polis’ decision are Colorado’s two US senators, as well as other vocal critics up and down the ballot. (One of those indignant senators is Michael Bennet, who is running to replace Polis.) There have been calls, within his own party, to investigate and impeach the governor, who had been spoken of as a potential presidential candidate in 2028.

“He was aiming for a national profile,” said Floyd Ciruli, a pollster who’s been taking soundings of Colorado voters for decades. “This makes it much more difficult.” Given Democrats’ molten outrage, that seems like an understatement. The judge who sentenced Peters in October 2024 was unsparing. “You’re as defiant ... a defendant as this court has ever seen,” District Judge Matthew Barrett scolded her. “You are as privileged as they come and you used that privilege to obtain power, a following and fame. You are no hero.... You’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”

The problem, according to the Colorado Court of Appeals, was that Barrett wrongly punished Peters not just for her illegal actions but for speaking out about alleged election fraud. “Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud,” the three-judge panel wrote in a unanimous April decision. “It was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.”

The judges — all Democratic appointees — upheld Peters’ conviction and denied her request to transfer the case from Barrett. They ordered him to come up with a new sentence. And that’s where Polis, who placed Barrett on the bench, should have let things alone. Instead, the governor interceded and essentially cut Peters’ sentence in half. “The crimes you were convicted of are very serious and you deserve to spend time in prison,” Polis wrote in his commutation letter. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes.”

In response, Peters thanked Polis, apologised and expressed contrition.

“I made mistakes, and for those I am sorry,” Peters wrote in a statement addressed to the governor. “I have learned and grown during my time in prison and going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.”