Ex-county clerk jailed for tampering with voting machines

A former Colorado county election official has been sentenced to 9 years in jail for tampering with voting machines after the 2020 presidential election.

Tina Peters, a Republican, was convicted final August on most counts in opposition to her within the election interference case.

Peters, 68, helped breach Mesa County’s election laptop programs and allowed an unauthorised particular person to entry voting tools and election data.

She carried out the breach amid unsubstantiated claims that mass voter fraud had precipitated former President Donald Trump to lose the White Home within the final presidential election.

State District Court docket Decide Matthew Barrett informed Peters on Thursday: “You’re no hero.

“You’re a charlatan who used and continues to be utilizing your prior place in workplace to hawk a snake oil that’s been confirmed to be junk time and time once more.”

He sentenced her to eight-and-a-half years within the Colorado Division of Corrections and extra time within the Mesa County Detention Heart.

Peters pleaded not responsible to all fees in 2022, however a jury convicted her on seven of the ten counts.

These included three counts of making an attempt to affect a public servant, one rely of conspiracy to commit felony impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of responsibility and failing to adjust to the secretary of state.

“Tina Peters has been sentenced to 9 years of incarceration for her harmful makes an attempt to interrupt into her personal election tools to show Trump’s ‘Large Lie’,” Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold mentioned in an announcement. “We is not going to permit anybody to threaten our elections.”

The case marked the primary time a neighborhood election official was prosecuted over a safety seashore within the 2020 election.

Peters turned “fixated” on voting issues after the presidential election, prosecutors mentioned.

Investigators additionally issued a search warrant for MyPillow founder Mike Lindell, a proponent of election fraud claims, in connection to Peters’ case, the BBC’s US companion CBS Information reported.