A jury convicted Tina Peters, a former Colorado clerk and the first local election official to face charges for a security breach following the 2020 election, The Associated Press reports. Peters, a one-time hero to election deniers, was accused of using someone else’s security badge to give an expert affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell access to the Mesa County election system and deceiving other officials about that person’s identity. Lindell is a prominent promoter of false claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election from Donald Trump. Prosecutors said Peters was seeking fame and became “fixated” on voting problems after getting involved with those who had questioned the accuracy of the 2020 presidential election results. Peters' breach heightened concerns over potential insider threats, in which rogue election workers sympathetic to partisan lies could use their access and knowledge to launch an attack from within.
Peters was convicted of three counts of attempting to influence a public servant, one count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state. She was found not guilty of identity theft, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation and one count of criminal impersonation, rejecting that she had used the identity of the security badge’s owner, a local man named Gerald Wood, without his permission. In a post on the social media platform X after the verdict, Peters accused Colorado-based Dominion Voting Systems, as well as lawyers for state election officials, of stealing votes. “I will continue to fight until the Truth is revealed that was not allowed to be brought during this trial. This is a sad day for our nation and the world. But we WILL win in the end,” she said. The verdict came after prosecutors urged jurors to convict Peters, saying she deceived government employees so she could work with outsiders affiliated with Lindell.
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