The Strange Tale of Tina Peters

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Simply six weeks earlier than the 2020 presidential election — sport day for vote-counting bureaucrats — Tina Peters was so happy with her operation on the Mesa County clerk’s workplace that she invited a movie crew in to indicate it off. There’s no probability of mishap right here, she boasted.

“The Russians can’t hack into and begin casting votes for somebody,” she stated, as a number of within the workplace chuckled.

By Might 2021, it was Ms. Peters, not the Russians, who had helped engineer an audacious breach of voting machines, in accordance with an indictment charging her with seven felonies. Ms. Peters organized to repeat delicate election software program from county voting machines in an try and show the 2020 presidential election was rigged, in accordance with courtroom data. Prosecutors stated she dedicated identification theft and legal impersonation, and violated the duties of her workplace within the course of. Ms. Peters has pleaded not responsible.

The unusual story of Tina Peters — a once-ordinary public servant consumed by conspiracy theories and catapulted to minor stardom by believers — will take its subsequent twist on Tuesday, when voters resolve whether or not to make the indicted public official the Republican nominee for secretary of state, the highest election official in Colorado. Polls are sparse within the major race, however Ms. Peters is taken into account a contender.

Ms. Peters didn’t simply stumble into the world of election conspiracy theories. A overview of public statements and interviews with individuals concerned in her case confirmed she was repeatedly assisted by a unfastened community of election deniers, a few of whom labored alongside Donald J. Trump’s authorized crew to attempt to subvert the presidential election in 2020. They’re nonetheless working to undermine confidence in elections at present.

That community’s involvement is only one of a number of weird plot factors in Ms. Peters’s case. The Mesa County breach concerned a former surfer who impersonated a pc “nerd” and made a FaceTime name throughout the operation, reporting by The New York Occasions reveals. Afterward, the crew shared their loot — pictures of voting machine knowledge — at a convention streamed on-line, promoting the trouble to hundreds. On Friday, Ms. Peters informed The Occasions that her congresswoman, Consultant Lauren Boebert, “inspired me to go ahead with the imaging.”

A press officer for Ms. Boebert, a Republican, known as the declare false.

By way of all of it, Ms. Peters has parlayed the episode right into a nationwide political profile on the suitable, talking at occasions throughout the nation the place she is well known as a hero. Influential election deniers have come to her assist: Mike Lindell, the MyPillow government who helps a steady of attorneys and researchers selling bogus theories, says he has funneled as a lot as $200,000 to Ms. Peters’s authorized protection. Others, together with Patrick Byrne, a former Overstock government, have run advertisements attacking her major opponent.

In a press release to The Occasions, Ms. Peters declined to reply particular questions concerning the episode, citing pending litigation. In September, earlier than Ms. Peters was indicted, her lawyer acknowledged that she had allowed “one non-employee” to repeat laborious drives, however argued that there was no rule or regulation towards it, one thing the secretary of state’s workplace disputes.

In public appearances since, Ms. Peters has stated she made the copies as a result of she nervous the voting machine firm was going to delete laptop programs that recorded the 2020 election and needed to protect data. She has been much less forthcoming about how the fabric ended up on-line.

“The individuals wish to know HOW our elections have been turned over to machines with no oversight, transparency or actual safety in any significant means,” Ms. Peters stated within the assertion.

Supplies launched within the Mesa County breach have been used to gasoline the churn of misinformation about President Biden’s victory. Election specialists say the episode additionally highlights a rising vulnerability in election safety: the insider menace.

Because the Mesa County breach was made public, there have been greater than a half-dozen experiences of native election officers taking comparable actions. Election conspiracy idea promoters declare there are extra on the market.

Specialists say the hazard is that the very individuals trusted to hold out elections may launch confidential data and undermine safety measures.

It’s a “new and, frankly, extra discouraging” menace, stated Christopher Krebs, who ran the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Safety Company on the Division of Homeland Safety from 2018 to 2020. “Institutionally, we’ve misplaced a little bit of a North Star when it comes to how elections are carried out.”

Ballots within the Wind

Tina Peters’s 2018 election to clerk and recorder of Mesa County, a Republican stronghold amid the canyons of western Colorado, was her first foray into public workplace. A former flight attendant who ran a development firm together with her ex-husband, Ms. Peters made her prime marketing campaign concern the reopening of native Division of Motor Autos satellite tv for pc places of work, a promise she fulfilled shortly.

However she had extra hassle with election administration. Three months after the 2019 election, greater than 500 ballots have been discovered uncounted in a drop field outdoors the county election workplace. Within the 2020 presidential major, accomplished ballots have been discovered blowing within the wind close to the clerk’s workplace, in accordance with The Every day Sentinel, the newspaper in Grand Junction.

By July 2020, residents had begun a recall effort to take away her from workplace, however they did not receive sufficient signatures.

The final election in Mesa County in 2020 went off easily, with no complaints of fraud or different delays. But the conspiracy theories spouted by Mr. Trump shortly took maintain on this deeply pink county, and county commissioners have been quickly inundated with calls from constituents questioning the outcomes.

Ms. Peters ultimately rejected requests to hand-count the ballots in her personal county, the place Mr. Trump gained 62 % of the vote, however she started to specific doubts concerning the nationwide outcomes. She linked with a neighborhood group, organized by Ms. Boebert’s former marketing campaign supervisor, that met usually to swap theories. In April 2021, the group hosted Douglas Frank, a highschool math and science instructor in Ohio whose debunked theories have been influential with election conspiracists.

After seeing Mr. Frank’s presentation, Ms. Peters invited him to attend an upcoming “trusted construct” of the county election gear, in accordance with courtroom data. The method is actually a software program replace — carried out in a safe location by officers from the secretary of state’s workplace and workers of Dominion Voting Techniques, the voting machine producer — that election skeptics have come to consider erases essential election knowledge. It doesn’t.

Mr. Frank didn’t settle for the provide, however one other member of the election denier community did attend, in accordance with courtroom data and interviews. Conan Hayes was a former professional surfer who had labored with Mr. Trump’s authorized crew because it challenged the 2020 outcomes. In 2021, Mr. Byrne paid him round $200,000 to proceed his work for a yr, in accordance with Mr. Byrne.

In line with an account from Mr. Byrne, and confirmed by Mr. Hayes, he attended the trusted construct on Might 25, 2021. Mr. Hayes known as Mr. Byrne from contained in the Mesa County election places of work, talking in a hushed voice and explaining that he’d been invited to make backup copies of machines by a authorities official who thought {that a} cover-up was underway, Mr. Byrne stated. When the 2 spoke over FaceTime, Mr. Byrne noticed Mr. Hayes was dressed like a pc “nerd” and sporting another person’s identification tag, Mr. Byrne stated.

Ms. Peters had launched a contractor on the occasion and recognized him as Gerald Wooden, a neighborhood I.T. guide, in accordance with courtroom data. The true Mr. Wooden, nonetheless, informed investigators he was not there that day, or two days earlier, when his badge was used to enter a safe space.

Mr. Hayes has not been charged and isn’t named within the indictment, although a decide’s order did establish him as later receiving a bundle within the mail from Ms. Peters.

In a quick cellphone interview, Mr. Hayes stated Mr. Byrne’s account was correct. “Patrick is fairly clear on issues,” he stated.

‘I’ve Seen Issues I Can’t Unsee’

Ms. Peters didn’t converse intimately concerning the incident, although she alluded to appearing on her worries concerning the election in a gathering with a county commissioner over the summer season.

“She talked about these white-hat guys, and she or he talked about having introduced somebody in to take a look at the computer systems, and that she now believed there was some compromise to the machines,” recalled Janet Rowland, a Republican and county commissioner in Mesa County. “And that was when she used the phrase, I believe even twice at that one assembly, ‘I’ve seen issues I can’t unsee.’”

In early August, passwords to the Mesa County election gear appeared on a QAnon determine’s Telegram channel after which a right-wing web site, resulting in an investigation by the secretary of state.

Days later, Mesa County’s breach discovered a fair greater highlight at a “Cyber Symposium” in South Dakota organized by Mr. Lindell. After one in all Mr. Lindell’s different wild claims, which Mr. Hayes had additionally labored on, fizzled, he modified the dialog: Ms. Peters appeared onstage to inform her story and the Mesa County conspiracy was born.

The Subsequent Conspiracy Concept

As a part of Ms. Peters’s authorized protection, data copied in Mesa County was quickly packaged right into a sequence of three experiences purporting to indicate corruption within the election system. They have been pumped by the web boards and promoted at in-person conferences. Mesa County quickly overtook different discredited theories, such because the fictions about improprieties in Antrim County, Mich., that Mr. Trump eagerly promoted.

Actually, a few of the identical figures have been concerned in crafting each conspiracy theories. Mr. Hayes had helped to acquire the Antrim County data. And a cybersecurity agency, Allied Safety Operations Group, that wrote the debunked Antrim evaluation additionally produced the Mesa County experiences for Ms. Peters’s authorized crew, in accordance with the agency’s chief. There isn’t any proof the group was concerned within the Mesa County breach.

Mr. Byrne calls the experiences “the Rosetta Stone for us to show the entire thing.” However specialists say they reveal no issues in any respect. Two of the three experiences don’t even counsel points with election outcomes and, as a substitute, draw false conclusions concerning the vulnerability of elections machines by misinterpreting sure legal guidelines and procedures, stated Matt Crane, government director of the Colorado County Clerks Affiliation, who has studied the experiences carefully.

A 3rd report claims to indicate anomalies in two Mesa County elections. However the points have been attributable to human error and there was no proof that any vote counts have been improper, in accordance with the Mesa County District Lawyer’s workplace, which did an in depth investigation.

The Marketing campaign

In February, Ms. Peters determined to attempt to flip her superstar into political energy, asserting a bid for secretary of state.

She made appearances on Stephen Okay. Bannon’s podcast and linked up with a gaggle of far-right candidates for secretary of state throughout the nation. She secured a talking slot at a rally held by Mr. Trump in Wyoming.

In March, Ms. Peters was indicted on 10 legal counts associated to the trouble to repeat voting gear software program, together with making an attempt to affect a public servant, legal impersonation, conspiracy to commit legal impersonation, identification theft and first-degree official misconduct.

​​On the marketing campaign path, Ms. Peters says the costs are politically motivated. She has claimed the investigation is a part of a “globalist takeover” and casts herself as a martyr for a trigger.

“I went to jail for you and I’ll proceed to do it,” she informed a gaggle of election activists in Texas in April.

Ms. Peters has declined to say who’s paying her attorneys, however has directed individuals desirous to assist her authorized efforts to donate to the Lindell Authorized Offense Fund, which Mr. Lindell says he makes use of for varied lawsuits and tasks.

​​Within the closing days of the marketing campaign, Ms. Peters has acquired different help. A brand new tremendous PAC in Colorado known as Residents for Election Integrity has spent $198,000 on commercials attacking Pam Anderson, one in all Ms. Peters’s opponents for the Republican nomination, in accordance with marketing campaign finance disclosures.

The group just lately acquired a $100,000 donation from The America Challenge, a gaggle based by Mr. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, Michael Flynn, one other determine within the battle to overturn the 2020 election, and Mr. Byrne.

Ryan Biller contributed reporting from Grand Junction, Colo.