COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KKTV) – The former Colorado election official has made national headlines after being convicted of charges tied to a security breach of an elections computer system in Mesa County in 2020.

Tina Peters spoke before her sentencing saying she is remorseful.

“Your honor, I’m not a criminal,” Peters said.

Peters was convicted of multiple charges including three counts of attempting to influence a public servant… And conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation.

“…I don’t deserve to be in prison. I can do a lot more good, a lot more good out helping people, which is what I’m good at doing,” Peters said.

Judge Matthew Barrett had this to say:

“You are no hero, you abused you position, and you’re a charlatan who used and is still using your position to pedal a snake oil that has been proven to be junk time and time again.”

Peters was accused of giving someone unauthorized access to the Mesa County election system.

“Today sentencing sends a really clear message that Colorado will not tolerate any threats to our elections,” Secretary of State Jena Griswold said.

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser also released a statement saying in part quote:

“Tina Peters violated her duty as an election official and seriously compromised trust with her fellow Coloradans. Today, the court handed down a fair and just sentence for her criminal acts…”

Since Peters was first charged Colorado has passed a number of laws regarding election security and tampering.

“My office will act very quickly to safeguard and protect the voice of every voter in the state Republican, Democrat, and unaffiliated alike,” Griswold said.

11 News reached out to Peters’ attorneys to get their reaction to the sentencing and did not hear back

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The legendary rocker Joe Walsh once sang, “The Rocky Mountain way is better than the way we had.” But in Colorado, unfortunately, the Rocky Mountain way now more closely resembles censorship in Brazil than liberty in America.

More than 100 international free speech advocates, including five former U.S. attorneys general, joined an open letter to the Brazilian Congress last month condemning Brazil’s severe censorship, which includes suspension of the social media platform X.

While some may look on with mawkish curiosity at foreign intrigue they deem irrelevant to life in America, others may view Brazil’s authoritarian impulse through a lens of gratitude that it couldn’t happen here. Both are wrong.

One need only look to the state of Colorado to find an American example of governing authorities who seek to silence speech with which they disagree and compel reiteration of their preferred message.

More on that a bit later.

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, who owns X, has been engaged in a dispute with Brazilian Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes that stems from de Moraes’ demands that Musk’s social media platform censor messages he disfavors.

On Aug. 30, de Moraes officially suspended X nationwide in Brazil. He also froze the bank accounts of Starlink, a subsidiary of Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX that provides internet access via satellite.

In his order, de Moraes said X presents a “real danger” of “negatively influencing the electorate in 2024, with massive misinformation, with the aim of unbalancing the electoral result, based on hate campaigns in the digital age, to favor extremist populist groups.”

Besides the former attorneys general, signers of the Sept. 12 letter to Brazilian lawmakers include three members of the United Kingdom’s House of Lords, The Daily Wire’s Megan Basham, bestselling author Rod Dreher, podcaster Tammy Peterson, Babylon Bee CEO Seth Dillon, X “Spaces” host Mario Nawfal, former Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and leading academics such as Princeton University’s Robert P. George.

Sifting through de Moraes’ parade of red herrings reveals that he and others in power in Brazil fear that allowing access to certain speech on X might lead to an electoral result they wouldn’t like.

As international pressure builds against Brazil’s scurrilous attacks on Musk, X, and the fundamental human right to free speech, many Americans are awakening to the rising global tide of censorship at home.

Now, back to Colorado, where current state law invades the sanctity of the counselor-patient relationship. For patients who desire to live according to their true identity as image-bearers of God, created biologically male or female, the state has declared that any message other than so-called gender-affirming care will put a mental health care professional’s license at risk.

Colorado’s “pro-choice” legislators, who frequently pontificate that the issue of abortion should be left to women and their doctors, also banned doctors from offering women progesterone to counter the effects of the abortion pill.

Thankfully, legal challenges to this Colorado law are underway, but the chilling message from the Legislature is clear: The only state-approved choice once an abortion pill is taken is the one that results in the death of an unborn child. And that’s the only choice about which women can be trusted with information.

Government as gatekeeper to information in Colorado isn’t limited to the state. Local school officials decided that parents didn’t need to know their daughter would be required to share a room on an overnight field trip with a male who identified as female. Apparently, the parents couldn’t be trusted to make the “right” decision for their child. Much better to leave it to the “experts,” of course.

Colorado is also home to Lorie Smith and Jack Phillips.

Smith, who witnessed the now decadelong persecution of Phillips, a Christian baker and self-described cake artist, at the hands of the Colorado Civil Rights Commission. Smith took that body to the U.S. Supreme Court, where she won the most significant victory for free speech in many years.

Smith, a graphic artist, won for herself and other artists across the nation the Supreme Court’s recognition that coerced speech and censorship are two sides of the same unconstitutional coin. Phillips now waits to see if the Colorado Supreme Court will affirm this same principle for him.

At the heart of the matter in Brazil and Colorado is the widening gulf between the governing and the governed. It is a tempestuous sea of mistrust.

Government officials assume the role of arbiters of truth and the authority to decide what information the masses should have at their disposal. It is a story that has played out on the world stage many times and one that rarely has ended well for the common man or freedom.

America, owing to its extraordinary constitutional protections for the God-given rights of the individual, has been an exception to the general rule of history for nearly two and half centuries.

As Walsh would put it, “Life’s been good.” To remain so requires vigilance in defense of liberty at home as exemplary leadership for the world.

We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal.

While some in the media have worked overtime painting the narrative that Deion Sanders opted into coaching solely to promote his son, Shedeur — one of the best and most polarizing quarterbacks in college football — others have praised “Coach Prime” for holding Shedeur accountable, supporting Colorado’s players on and off the field and turning the Buffs to contenders in less than two years.

The scrutiny has much to do with Deion, who rubs some folks the wrong way with his revolutionary way of doing things. However, his son Shedeur’s confidence and ruthless ways have further inflamed the family’s critics who are seething following the Buffs’ hot 4-1 start.

Fortunately for Shedeur (and, apparently, the Buffs program), his dad is also his head coach and can “manage” the Heisman Trophy candidate whose arrogance is part of what makes him so special.

“Shedeur, that was horrible from you today. Horrible,” Deion doubled down before the Colorado football team after practice on Tuesday, courtesy of @SkoBuffsGoBuffs on X, proving anyone can get it. “You got to come with a better effort and more focus.”

Sanders, who is just two wins away from ensuring at least a .500 record and coaching in a bowl game in just the second year of his Boulder rebuild, is defying the gatekeepers of college football — not just with his words, but by proving them wrong.

“Head coach holding a leader of the team accountable. Love that,” said one comment underneath the video. “No one is above the standard and Prime knows it. Cannot allow complacency to kick in and that’s exactly what a coach does during the highs of a team.”

Deion’s defiance in the face of ridicule and focus on his players has overflown off the field where Sanders, with help from a credit union in September, invested in them and the lives of their children.

The 5430 Alliance, Colorado’s collective, partnered with Elevations Credit Union to open bank accounts for the children of eight Buffaloes players. Each account will have $2,121 deposited into it — a nod to Sanders’ number and, most importantly, an investment into each kid’s future.

“Coach Prime put out that call, and Elevations Credit Union responded,” said a representative who took center stage to surprise the players with the honor. “Coach Prime asked us to step up and to join him today and get in on opening up accounts for the children of some of the student athletes that he just appreciates so much.”

Maybe “Coach Prime” isn’t so bad after all.

Todderick Hunt covers Sports and Culture and Recruiting. Have a story idea or a tip? He can be reached at thunt@njadvancemedia.com.