
A former county clerk in Colorado is guilty of most of the charges brought against her for her role in breaching the computers of her county’s election system.
Tina Peters had been accused of using the security badge of someone else so she could access the election system in Mesa County and then give that access to an expert who was affiliated with Mike Lindell, the chief executive of My Pillow.
Prosecutors in the case said that Peters was trying to become famous and also became “fixated” on problems about the voting system in the country. She had become involved with people who were questioning whether the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
This case marks the first local election official who’s been prosecuted for their role in a security breach of election systems, as many conspiracy theories swirled about the 2020 election being stolen.
When news of the charges became public, it naturally raised fears of other potential threats that could arise from insiders like Peters, who might have access to secure information and use that to pander to people who bought into those election lies.
In her case, Peters was convicted of charges such as attempting to influence a public servant (three counts), and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, failing to comply with the secretary of state, violation of duty and official misconduct.
She was found not guilty of some of the charges that were brought against her, including one of the counts of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and criminal impersonation, as well as identity theft.
Peters’ defense team argued in court that their client didn’t steal the security badge of the other person but rather did so with their consent. That argument seems to have resonated with the jury, since they found her not guilty of the charge of identity theft.
Jurors only deliberated for a few hours in the case before announcing the verdict.
During closing arguments, one of the prosecutors, Janet Drake, said that Peters allowed a man who was posing as an employee of the county to take pictures of the hard drive of the election system’s computers both before and after a software upgrade was installed back in May of 2021.
Peters watched the update happen, Drake argued, so that she could become the “hero,” which might allow her to attend a symposium Lindell was hosting about the 2020 presidential election.
Lindell became a prominent face of election deniers, consistently professing that he had evidence that the election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
As Drake argued during closing arguments:
“The defendant was a fox guarding the henhouse. It was her job to protect the election equipment, and she turned on it and used her power for her own advantage.”
The defense argued that Peters didn’t break any laws, and was just trying to preserve the records of access to the system so she could discover whether people from “China or Canada” had successfully accessed the system while the county’s election ballots were being tallied.