A former Colorado county clerk was sentenced to prison Thursday for tampering with voting machines in the 2020 election and was thoroughly dressed down by the judge in her case.
Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters was sentenced to nine years for allowing a man to use a security card to access her county’s election system, and deceiving investigators about who the person was. He was later determined to be working with MAGA gadfly and pillow magnate Mike Lindell, a prominent election denialist and supporter of Donald Trump.
“I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen,” District Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters in announcing the sentence. “You are no hero. You abused your position and you’re a charlatan.”
Barrett said that Peters, a Republican, didn’t take her job seriously, espousing claims about rigged voting machines even after they were disproven. During the trial, prosecutors said that Peters was seeking attention after associating with election denialists, and Peters remained unrepentant about her crimes.
“I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” Peters told the court before she was sentenced. She tried to repeat her claims about “wireless devices” and software that altered ballot images, only to be rebuked by Barrett, who said that no discrepancies were found in ballot recounts.
“I’ve let you go on enough about this. The votes are the votes,” Barrett said. He added that Peters made multiple appearances broadcasted to fellow election deniers for her own gain.
“It’s just more lies. No objective person believes them. No, at the end of the day, you cared about the jets, the podcasts and people flying with you,” said Barrett. “You cannot help but lie as easy as you breathe.”
While Peters will be going to prison, at least 70 other pro-Trump election denialists today are working in election offices in battleground states across the country, according to a July report. In Georgia, the state election board has been upended by pro-Trump appointees trying to give him every advantage in November to prevent Kamala Harris from winning, as Biden did in 2020. Hopefully, Thursday’s sentence discourages other attempts at election interference, otherwise November will be chaotic.
