Governor Polis Freed a Convicted Election Saboteur
On May 15, 2026, Governor Jared Polis commuted the sentence of Tina Peters — a former county clerk convicted of seven crimes, including four felonies, for sabotaging Colorado’s election systems — and ordered her released on parole June 1, after less than two years behind bars. The sentencing judge had called Peters “a danger to our community” whose crimes struck at the foundation of democracy itself.
“Every effort to undermine the integrity of our elections and public’s trust in our institutions has been made by you.”
— Judge Matthew Barrett, sentencing Tina Peters, October 2024
What Peters Did
Tina Peters was the elected Mesa County Clerk and Recorder. In 2021, she secretly smuggled an associate of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell into a restricted software update of Mesa County’s Dominion voting machines, using a false identity to gain access. Confidential election system passwords were later posted publicly online. She was convicted in August 2024 on four felony and three misdemeanor charges and sentenced to 9 years in prison.
The judge was unsparing:
“You abdicated your position as a servant to the constitution and you chose you over all else.”
“You have no respect for the checks and balances of government. You have no respect for this court. You have no respect for law enforcement.”
“You are no hero. You’re a charlatan who used, and is still using, your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
“Prison is where folks go where punishment is what we’re focused on, because the crime committed is so significant that anything less would unduly mitigate the seriousness of the same.”
Why Did Polis Do It?
This was a bribe. The Trump administration had been systematically punishing Colorado to force Peters’ release: withholding federal funds, cancelling programs, denying disaster aid, dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and relocating the U.S. Space Command to Alabama. Trump personally uninvited Polis from a White House governors’ meeting (Oh no!) and warned Colorado was “suffering a big price.”
Polis paid the ransom. He freed a woman a judge called “a danger to our community” in exchange for federal relief. She is a convicted felon who spent years fundraising off her crimes and spreading the election lies that got her convicted. He did it anyway because he is yet another rich coward.
Polis chose his political and personal standing over the integrity of Colorado’s elections. That is a betrayal of his oath of office and grounds for impeachment.
