Colorado official who became a hero to conspiracy theorists will face trial for voting system violations

DENVER (AP) — The trial of former Colorado county clerk Tina Peters, a hero of election conspiracy theorists, is set to begin Wednesday, accused of orchestrating a hack of election security equipment.

The case against Peters centers on accusations that in May 2021, she allowed a man to use someone else’s security pass to make a copy of a Dominion Voting Systems computer hard drive while she and her assistant watched with the surveillance turned off.

Colorado election officials learned of the security breach in Mesa County months later when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website after Peters joined Lindell on stage at a “cyber symposium” and promised to reveal evidence of election fraud.

Peters, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges, argued that she had a duty to preserve the election results before the voting system was modernized and that she should not be prosecuted for carrying out her duties.

The copied hard drive contained proprietary software developed by Dominion Voting Systems, which is used by election offices across the country. The Colorado-based company has been the subject of conspiracy theories blaming its election equipment for trump cardloss. As a result, she filed several defamation lawsuits, settling against Fox News for $787 million last year.

Experts described the unauthorized release of data as serious, saying it provided a potential “practice environment” that would allow anyone to investigate vulnerabilities that could be exploited in future elections.

The incident is one of several suspected security breaches that have occurred since the 2020 election amid false accusations by Trump that voting systems were rigged against him.

Trump ally Sidney Powell pleaded guilty last year to reduced charges in Georgia in which prosecutors accused her of conspiring with others to access election equipment without a permit in Coffee County and hiring a computer forensics firm to copy software and data from voting machines and computers.

Election security experts and computer scientists say an attempt to access voting software in several states and share it with Trump allies poses a “grave risk” ahead of this year’s presidential election.

It is not known whether Peters — who has repeatedly made false accusations that the 2020 presidential election that Donald Trump lost to Joe Biden was a “massive, planned fraud” — will testify during the nearly two-week trial in the city of Grand Junction.

However, two of her closest aides are expected to testify against her.

Peters’ deputy, Belinda Knisley, and the assistant who was with her when the first computer image was taken, Sandra Brown, a former elections manager, have pleaded guilty under agreements that require them to testify against Peters.

Judge Matthew Barrett barred Peters from identifying herself as a whistleblower during the hearing and also ruled that the defense cannot attempt to make a case for the integrity of the election or Dominion, The Daily Sentinel reported.

The trial comes after several delays, following Peters’ failed bid to become Colorado’s top elections official and her decision to change lawyers on the eve of the February hearing.

Potential jurors are scheduled to be questioned Wednesday in the heavily Republican county near the Utah border that Donald Trump won in the 2020 presidential election with nearly 63% of the vote. Opening statements could be made later in the day.

Peters is charged with three counts: attempting to influence a public official, impersonation, two counts of conspiracy to impersonate, one count of identity theft, first-degree misconduct in official capacity and failure to obey the Secretary of State.

Prosecutors say the second image of the voting machine was taken after it was updated. The next day, Peters sent a package to the man who took the first image but left before the second could be completed. He has not been charged.

Peters’ case was the first case among 2020 conspiracy theories in which a local election official was charged over suspected breaches of voting systems security, fueling concerns across the country about potential insider threats, in which rogue election workers sympathetic to lies about the 2020 election could use their access to election equipment and knowledge gained from breaches to launch an attack from the inside.

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Christina Almeida Cassidy in Atlanta contributed to this report.