We have a challenge to save free and fair elections if we want to preserve democracy., Trump has other plans. Trump believes that his control over the election outcomes can be accomplished by empowering his supporters to control who gets to vote and who has the keys to tabulating the outcome of the vote across the nation. Governor Polis sets a dangerous precedent in granting clemency to Tina Peters just as Trump schemes to control the outcome of the 2026 November midterm elections.
Included in these Trump plans are to grab voter rolls information from states he and the GOP can use to suppress or promote the outcome, and to use federal forces to seize control of machines used by citizens to vote and the tabulation of results. This is no secret. Trump made Tina Peters the test case and the cause celibre. Polis just granted Trump a win and a template for how this power-preserving president thinks he can control the 2026 midterm outcome since the Colorado governor caved into Trump's demands to "free Tina Peters". Polis claimed Trump's threats did not influence his clemency grant, but it certainly appears that way and appearance counts in Trump's world.
The Colorado Secretary of State, Jena Griswold, had refused to turn over the voter information Trump had demanded and stood by the prosecution and outcome of the Peters case in the face of Trump's attempt to federalize elections, despite Constitutional provisions to the contrary. The fear is that Trump would use those rolls and the information provided to support or suppress voter turnout and results in the midterms of November 2026 to keep his control of Congress. Trump administration again requests sensitive Colorado voter data, state declines | Colorado Newsline and then sued the state of Colorado.
Peters was found guilty by a jury that she gave those codes and access to a MAGA volunteer to the voting tallying machine in defiance of state rules and state criminal law designed to. keep that from happening. She took her orders from Trump et al to "secure " the machines he issued via media. She did not take her orders from her oath to follow state laws and election procedure rules. Unlike the January 6 pardons of crimes committed under federal law, crimes committed under state laws are not subject to federal crime-related pardons.
The attempt by Trump to grab control of elections is no secret..and neither are the details of plans to do so on behalf of the GOP dominated by MAGA. Such actions Peters tried cannot go unpunished if we sincerely care about election integrity. The issue is whether she was too harshly punished. There was no issue about whether the jury trial and the sentencing guidelines the judge used were incorrect, or whether the findings in a trial that she committed the felony were procedurally wrong. She was found guilty of violating state laws by a correct jury, and Polis' actions did not change that fact. She had already served half of her 9 year sentence.
At stake is the issue that the Trump argument for federal control over state voting laws is bogus, that the 2020 election was stolen. That is a false pretext. It has been 6 years, plenty of time, for MAGA to provide proof that it happened, and zero evidence has been found. That would have changed the outcome. Instead, this "stop the steal" pretext is not driven by a pious concern over vote integrity, but it is a strategy by Trump et al to have the party in power, his, to control the outcome of the vote count. .
At issue is that Polis caved into threats by Trump et al to cut federal funding to federal programs for Colorado citizens if Peters were not freed. Polis denied that it was why he "freed Peters", but it most certainly looks like it and sets a dangerous precedent that other states could also cave in and follow in the face of their resistance to the Trump power grab.
It is a warning to those of us who care about state control of elections as a way to counter a wannabe dictator from using underhanded tactics to thwart the outcome of elections he fears may not go his way.
Felicia Muftic is a former Denver elections official
https://www.cpr.org/2026/05/15/tina-peters-sentence-shortened-jared-polis/ Excellent in-depth story and Polis' reasoning of why
Trump administration again requests sensitive Colorado voter data, state declines | Colorado Newsline
Case is currently pending in federal court, with a decision awaited on a motion to dismiss filed by the state...per AI
Trump threatened Colorado funding as ‘punishment’ oa ver Tina Peters, judge finds - Democracy Docket Snap funds defunding threatened
Beware of Novel Claims of 2020 Election Fraud | Brennan Center for Justice On evidence of 2020 election fraud
