DENVER — Colorado’s top election official joined state county clerks Tuesday in renewed calls urging Gov. Jared Polis not to pardon former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters after the governor suggested last week he was looking at revisiting her case.
The letter, signed by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and officials from the Colorado County Clerk’s Association, comes two months after state county clerks urged him to keep Peters in state custody, and nearly a week after Gov. Polis suggested a possible commutation for Peters during an interview with another TV station in which he called her sentence “harsh.”
“Releasing Tina Peters via pardon or commutation would validate her actions and embolden election denialism in Colorado and across the country,” the election officials wrote, saying it would send “a loud message to those who would attack our elections and democracy that they too may have immunity.”
A potential pardon or commutation, they wrote, “would send the demoralizing message to those of us who protect our elections and democracy – our county clerks, their staff, election judges, and Secretary of State staff – that our work is meaningless.”
- Read the full letter from Colorado election officials here or in the embed below:
Peters was convicted of state crimes and sentenced to nine years behind bars for granting unauthorized access to Mesa County voting systems that she oversaw while continuing to press discredited claims about voter machine fraud in the 2020 presidential election following President Trump’s loss to former President Joe Biden.
Trump pardoned Peters last month, but presidential pardons do not extend to state crimes, according to constitutional experts. Peter’s lawyers have said Trump has the authority to pardon her, arguing that the president has a right to pardon people who committed crimes to carry out federal duties, such as preserving election information.
Politics
Colorado appeals panel appears skeptical of Tina Peters' sentence
Peters has never denied she took part in the data breach scheme and has insisted that everything she did was geared toward the greater good.
Lawyers for the state have argued that Peters did not need to commit crimes to protect election data because her staff had already backed up the information before the upgrade. Instead, they say the hard drive copies captured proprietary Dominion Voting Systems software.
Peters has also claimed that District Court Judge Matthew Barrett violated her First Amendment rights by punishing her with a stiff sentence of nearly a decade for making allegations about election fraud. He called her a “charlatan” and said she posed a danger to the community for spreading lies about voting and undermining the democratic process.
- "You are a charlatan": Watch the moment a judge sentenced Tina Peters to nine years in prison:
Last month, Peters lost an attempt in federal court to be released from prison while she appeals her conviction.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons also tried but failed to get Peters moved to a federal prison in late November.
Her lawyers say she is entitled to at least a new sentencing hearing because Barrett based his sentence partially on a contempt conviction in a related case that the appeals court threw out last year. They also are asking the appeals court to recognize Trump's pardon and immediately set Peters free.
Trump has lambasted both Democratic Gov. Jared Polis and the Republican district attorney who brought the charges, Dan Rubinstein, for keeping Peters in prison. In Tuesday’s letter, the state election officials urged Polis to uphold Colorado’s laws and the country’s democracy.
“Caving into the demands of a vengeful President does not make our state or country better off; it encourages more vengeance,” they said, in closing.
Denver7 reached out to the Governor’s Office for comment on Tuesday’s letter from the election officials but did not hear back by deadline.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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