Tina Peters of Colorado: Sentence, Commutation, and Release

Tina Peters is the former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk and recorder who was convicted in 2024 of felony and misdemeanor charges tied to an unauthorized breach of her county’s voting equipment after the 2020 presidential election. A jury found her guilty of seven of ten counts. She was sentenced to roughly nine years in prison, an appellate court later affirmed her convictions but reversed her sentence, and Governor Jared Polis commuted the sentence in May 2026. She was released on parole on June 1, 2026.¹²

What Peters Did

Peters, a Republican, served one term as Mesa County clerk and recorder from 2019 to 2023. After the 2020 election she became convinced that voting machines had been used to steal the presidency from Donald Trump, and she never completed the state-required certification for her position.¹³

In May 2021, the Colorado Secretary of State’s office was scheduled to perform a routine software update, known as a “trusted build,” on the county’s Dominion voting equipment. Peters used the event to let an unauthorized outsider into the secure elections area. She misrepresented a man named Gerald Wood as a new administrative assistant to obtain an employee badge, then gave that badge to Conan Hayes, a California computer expert affiliated with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. Hayes entered the tabulation room posing as Wood and copied the county’s election system hard drives.⁴⁵³

Peters directed her deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, to turn off the security cameras in the room, and Peters herself recorded the process on her phone. The group used encrypted messaging and burner phones. Copies of the data, including voting equipment passwords, were later posted to a conspiracy theory website.⁵⁶

Once the breach came to light, Secretary of State Jena Griswold decertified Mesa County’s voting equipment and moved to remove Peters from direct election oversight. The county had to replace its entire set of voting machines. Commissioner Cody Davis later testified that total costs to Mesa County reached roughly $1.4 million once a hand recount, a replacement election official, and added security were factored in.⁷¹

The Convictions

Peters was indicted in March 2022 in Mesa County District Court on ten counts. Her trial was held before Judge Matthew D. Barrett. On August 12, 2024, the jury convicted her on seven counts:¹

Three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant
One felony count of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation
One misdemeanor count of first-degree official misconduct
One misdemeanor count of violation of duty
One misdemeanor count of failure to comply with requirements of the Secretary of State

She was acquitted of two felony counts of criminal impersonation and one count of identity theft.¹

The prosecution’s case leaned on testimony from Secretary of State staff who said they would never have carried out the trusted build had they known an unauthorized person was in the room, on testimony from Gerald Wood that he had been “duped” into providing his security credentials, and on cooperation from Knisley, who had already pleaded guilty to three misdemeanors and been permanently barred from elections work. Prosecutor Janet Drake told the court that Peters had been “fixated” on being a “hero” to impress Mike Lindell.⁵⁸⁹

The Nine-Year Sentence

On October 3, 2024, Judge Barrett sentenced Peters to eight years and three months in the custody of the Colorado Department of Corrections plus six months in the Mesa County jail, an aggregate widely reported as nine years.⁵

Barrett’s remarks from the bench were unusually pointed. He called Peters a “charlatan” who “peddled snake oil” and “betrayed her oath,” and told her: “I am convinced you would do it all over again if you could. You’re as defiant as any defendant this court has ever seen.” He rejected her continued claims about voting machines as “just more lies,” said her motivation was “the jets, the podcasts, and people fawning over you,” and cited the “immeasurable damage” she had caused to public trust in elections along with her lack of remorse and her failure to complete her mandatory certification.³¹

The Appeal

On April 2, 2026, the Colorado Court of Appeals issued a unanimous opinion in People v. Peters, Case No. 24CA1951. A three-judge panel of Ted Tow, Craig Welling, and Lino Lipinsky affirmed all seven convictions but reversed the sentence. Judge Tow wrote that the trial court had improperly considered Peters’ First Amendment-protected beliefs in setting the punishment, explaining that “her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.”¹⁰¹¹

The panel also rejected two arguments from Peters’ defense. It ruled that any presidential pardon did not reach her state conviction, invoking the dual sovereignty doctrine and the constitutional limitation of the pardon power to “offenses against the United States.” It also rejected a Supremacy Clause immunity claim, finding Peters was not a federal officer carrying out federal duties. The case was remanded to Judge Barrett for resentencing, and the court denied a request to reassign it to a different judge.⁵¹¹

Trump’s Advocacy and the Federal Pardon Claim

Trump repeatedly called for Peters’ release. In May 2025 he described her on social media as an “innocent Political Prisoner” and directed the Justice Department to review her case, and in March 2025 the U.S. Department of Justice had already filed a court statement saying it would examine the conviction for possible “abuses of the criminal justice process.” In August 2025 he posted, “FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians,” and threatened unspecified “harsh measures” if she was not released.¹²¹³

On December 11, 2025, Trump announced that he had pardoned Peters. That announcement had no legal effect on her Colorado conviction. Governor Polis said no president has jurisdiction over state law or the power to pardon state convictions, and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said the idea “has no precedent in American law.” The Court of Appeals confirmed the same point months later.¹⁴⁵

The Polis Commutation

On May 15, 2026, Governor Polis commuted Peters’ sentence from nine years to four and a half years, making her eligible for parole on June 1, 2026. Polis said Peters’ convictions stand and that she “deserves to be a felon for life,” but he called the original sentence “overly harsh and inappropriate” because the trial judge had allowed her personal beliefs to influence the punishment, which Polis described as “contrary to the First Amendment.” The commutation effectively preempted the resentencing the Court of Appeals had ordered.²¹⁵

The backlash was fast, and it came largely from Polis’s own party. On May 20, 2026, the Colorado Democratic Party’s central committee voted to formally censure him, with 89.8 percent of more than 200 voting members in favor. The resolution called the commutation “conduct inconsistent with the party’s commitment to democratic institutions, election integrity, and public accountability” and barred Polis indefinitely from serving as an honored guest or speaker at party events. Every Democrat in the Colorado House and Senate had previously signed a letter urging him to deny clemency, citing Peters’ lack of remorse, reports of violent behavior in custody, and threats already faced by election workers.¹⁶¹⁷

A Polis spokesperson said, “Sometimes the right thing isn’t the popular thing with everybody.” Polis called Peters’ beliefs “nutty” and “demonstrably false” but maintained that holding false beliefs “is not a crime in our country.” Secretary of State Griswold called the clemency “an affront to our democracy” that “will embolden the election denial movement.” Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, who had urged the governor to leave the sentence alone, said: “I hate that this is what my town is known for.”¹⁸⁷¹⁹

Release, Parole Conditions, and What’s Still Pending

Peters was released from La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo on June 1, 2026, after serving more than 600 days.²⁰

Her parole agreement, signed May 28, 2026, requires her to live in Colorado, report to a parole officer in Mesa County, and get prior approval for any out-of-state travel. She is prohibited from possessing firearms, alcohol, marijuana, or illegal drugs, and she must either find employment or enroll in a full-time educational program. The conditions also require cognitive behavioral therapy and a mental health evaluation.²¹

Within hours of her release, Peters appeared on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, repeated claims that voting machines “allow the votes to be flipped,” described her imprisonment as “retribution,” and called her release “a miracle.” On June 26, 2026, she spoke at a conservative gathering at the Douglas County Fairgrounds hosted by Rocky Mountain Voice, telling supporters, “If we don’t stand up and we don’t fight back now, what happened to me will happen to each one of you.”²⁰²²

Matt Crane, the Republican chair of the Colorado County Clerks Association, said Peters’ return to a public platform would spread “lies and disinformation” that have made the work of election officials across the state “more challenging.”²

Peters’ legal exposure is not over. She still faces pending complaints before the Colorado Independent Ethics Commission concerning a cyber symposium sponsored by Lindell, the operation of a criminal legal defense fund, and an alleged $800,000 contribution from Lindell. Those proceedings had been paused during her criminal trial.²¹

1
Colorado Newsline. Tina Peters, Former Mesa County Clerk, Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison Over Voting Systems Breach
2
KUNC. Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters Released From Prison
3
PBS NewsHour. Republican Election Denier Tina Peters Sentenced to 9 Years in Prison for Voting Data Scheme
4
Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. The Former Pro Surfer at the Heart of the Peters Case
5
Colorado Court of Appeals. People v. Peters, 2026COA24
6
Votebeat. Tina Peters Election Security Threat
7
Colorado Secretary of State. Press Release Regarding Tina Peters
8
Colorado Sun. Belinda Knisley Pleads Guilty
9
Yahoo News. Tina Peters Doubles Down on Debunked Claims
10
Colorado Newsline. Court Orders Resentencing for Tina Peters
11
Courthouse News Service. Colorado Court Reverses Sentence for Ex-Election Clerk Tina Peters but Conviction Stands
12
The Guardian. Trump Demands Release of Colorado Election Clerk From Prison
13
The Hill. Donald Trump Demands Tina Peters Freedom
14
Axios. Trump Pardons Tina Peters
15
Aspen Public Radio. Polis Shortens Tina Peters Prison Sentence
16
Colorado Newsline. Colorado Democrats Censure Polis
17
Colorado House Democrats. Democratic Leaders Respond to Commutation of Tina Peters’ Sentence
18
NPR. Colorado Democratic Party Censures Gov. Jared Polis Over Commutation for Tina Peters
19
The New York Times. Tina Peters Release From Prison
20
Colorado Sun. Tina Peters Released From Colorado Prison
21
Colorado Politics. After Prison Release, Tina Peters Faces Tight Parole Limits, Ongoing Legal Troubles
22
The Gazette. Tina Peters Tells Supporters to Stand Up and Fight Back at Castle Rock Event