Update on the Tina Peters trial: 9 years for criminal election interference

Update 5/6/2025: Trump demands Peters released from prison as his federal government tries to interfere with state and local court decisions. https://coloradosun.com/2025/05/06/tina-peters-donald-trump-social-media-post/

More at: https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/trumps-power-grab-includes-federalizing.html

Update on the Tina Peters trial: 9 years for criminal election interference. She was defiant to the end, no remorse. A true MAGA soldier, a true believer who was loyal to Trump but not to democracy and the Constitution. Her conviction should serve as a warning to other election officials who try to interfere with the count, as the Trump campaign appears to be planning to do in 2024 as they did in 2020.  The rule of law still prevails.

Tina Peters was sentenced to 9 years. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/03/trump-election-conspiracist-tina-peters-sentenced.html

Hear how the judge came down on her: Colorado County Clerks Association responds to Tina Peters' sentence | Watch (msn.com)

Update: 12//10/2024   Jena Griswold's office violated policy leading to voting equipment passwords leak, but mistake was 'unintentional' | Colorado Politics | gazette.com

 From my Substack posting of 8/13/24:

There has been a great deal of hand-wringing about MAGA replacing local election clerks with election deniers in a plot, hardly secret, to throw the 2024 presidential elections into chaos and even violence if Donald Trump appears to have lost the election. Here is what it took in Colorado to successfully prosecute a county clerk who tinkered with election computers. Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters found guilty in election computer breach (denverpost.com)

The 2024 version of MAGA plans to overturn the election is to place election deniers and Trump loyalists in swing states in local election board officials. The plot, well underway now, would have MAGA election officials in swing states refuse to certify results on some pretext of fraud, though they do not have the power to make that determination if the Constitution empowering them contains “shall relay results.” Shall means it is an administrative duty that they are required to perform.

The state Attorney General removed Tina Peters from election administration functions earlier. That is how we did it in Colorado and how it could be done in the MAGA-targeted scheme elsewhere. The fight has moved to Georgia, where the state elections board claims they have the power to refuse to relay the results, contrary to the “shall” provision in their state constitution. This is an attempt to get around the “shall,” and no doubt will result in court actions. In the meantime, the Tina Peters case gives the blueprint for how to deal with election deniers who do not abide by the rules, and it may serve as a warning to the MAGA wannabe certification deniers at the local and county levels.

MAGA replaced my own county clerk in Colorado in an election squeaker two years ago with one suspected of being an election denier. The state GOP party chair election denier, Dave Williams, was recently defeated in his primary bid for Congess and there is an earnest attempt to oust him as GOP chair. Judge allows Colorado Republicans to meet to remove Dave Williams (denverpost.com).     Update 8/24/24 Colorado Republican Party members vote to oust chairman Dave Williams (msn.com)

Georgia county election boards could refuse to certify results under new rule : NPR

Election certification under threat - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (citizensforethics.org)

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Colorado, an epicenter of the conflict between election deniers and established voting systems.

Jeff Crank defeats Dave Williams, the Colorado GOP chair, in congressional primary • Colorado Newsline

Colorado GOP picks election denier Dave Williams to lead party into 2024 (axio

Colorado shows how to deal with election denying election officials: Tina Peters, guilty

Tina Peters was sentenced to 9 years. https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/03/trump-election-conspiracist-tina-peters-sentenced.html

 From my Substack posting of 8/13/24:

There has been a great deal of hand-wringing about MAGA replacing local election clerks with election deniers in a plot, hardly secret, to throw the 2024 presidential elections into chaos and even violence if Donald Trump appears to have lost the election. Here is what it took in Colorado to successfully prosecute a county clerk who tinkered with election computers. Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters found guilty in election computer breach (denverpost.com)

The 2024 version of MAGA plans to overturn the election is to place election deniers and Trump loyalists in swing states in local election board officials. The plot, well underway now, would have MAGA election officials in swing states refuse to certify results on some pretext of fraud, though they do not have the power to make that determination if the Constitution empowering them contains “shall relay results.” Shall means it is an administrative duty that they are required to perform.

The state Attorney General removed Tina Peters from election administration functions earlier. That is how we did it in Colorado and how it could be done in the MAGA-targeted scheme elsewhere. The fight has moved to Georgia, where the state elections board claims they have the power to refuse to relay the results, contrary to the “shall” provision in their state constitution. This is an attempt to get around the “shall,” and no doubt will result in court actions. In the meantime, the Tina Peters case gives the blueprint for how to deal with election deniers who do not abide by the rules, and it may serve as a warning to the MAGA wannabe certification deniers at the local and county levels.

MAGA replaced my own county clerk in Colorado in an election squeaker two years ago with one suspected of being an election denier. The state GOP party chair election denier, Dave Williams, was recently defeated in his primary bid for Congess and there is an earnest attempt to oust him as GOP chair. Judge allows Colorado Republicans to meet to remove Dave Williams (denverpost.com).     Update 8/24/24 Colorado Republican Party members vote to oust chairman Dave Williams (msn.com)

Georgia county election boards could refuse to certify results under new rule : NPR

Election certification under threat - CREW | Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (citizensforethics.org)

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: Colorado, an epicenter of the conflict between election deniers and established voting systems.

Jeff Crank defeats Dave Williams, the Colorado GOP chair, in congressional primary • Colorado Newsline

Colorado GOP picks election denier Dave Williams to lead party into 2024 (axios.com)

The "foul spirit" of those who threaten election officials

As a former elections official and county clerk in Denver, I was fortunate to have been in office at a time when fairness and impartial administrators of elections ruled the day in the latter 1980s and early 1990s. Shortly after I left, the Posse Comitatus raised its ugly head, threatening county clerks to erase tax liens and other tax negatives from their recorded documents. So violent were their threats that El Paso (Colorado Springs) had to have armed guards to protect her. Of course, she did not have the legal power to do what the terrorist demanded.. Those same kinds of violent attempts to terrorize public officials to go against their sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and the laws of their states, counties, and US government played out in Michigan. In 2020, a militia planned kidnapping their governor and their show of armed force at their statehouse. On January 6. 2021, a similar technique of domestic terror, to frighten lawmakers and the Vice President into not signing the certification of Biden's election. Colorado's Secretary of State Jena Griswold is the object of death threats as well. Amen to the opinion column in the Colorado Sun.. This threatens the very existence of democracy. https://coloradosun.com/.../election-jena-griswold.../...

As George W. Bush, president at the time of 9/11 so clearly said at Shanksville on the 20th anniversary of that 9/11 attack, in comparing the foreign terrorists who committed that act to the attackers at the capitol January 6, 2020: “There is little cultural overlap between violent extremists abroad and violent extremists at home.But in their disdain for pluralism, in their disregard for human life, in their determination to defile national symbols, they are children of the same foul spirit.” 

 Through public records and interviews, Reuters documented 102 threats of death or violence received by more than 40 election officials, workers, and their relatives in eight of the most contested battleground states in the 2020 presidential contest. Each was explicit enough to put a reasonable person in fear of bodily harm or death, the typical legal threshold for prosecution. Almost all of the 102 threats of violence appeared to be inspired by Trump’s debunked claims that the election was rigged against him. The messages often included highly personal, sometimes sexualized threats of violence or death, not only to the officials themselves but also to their family members and their children." Threatened U.S. election workers get little help from law enforcement (reuters.com)Threatened U.S. election workers get little help from law enforcement (reuters.com "

GOP-backed Arizona election review confirms Biden 2020 win | TheHill

A footnote:  Colorado Springs, CO has a history of the home of violent extremists: Spike Lee's movie was based on the KKK activities in the area. New Spike Lee movie focuses on Colorado detective who infiltrated Ku Klux Klan | News | coloradopolitics.com

Several of the January 6 rioters arrested and charged, and suspects are from the Colorado Springs area.Colorado's 9 accused insurrectionists | 9news.com

The Coloradans charged in connection with Jan 6. Capitol attack - Colorado Newsline

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