On Saturday, protesters gathered in Ft. Collins, holding signs, playing instruments, and claiming, without evidence, that jailed Mesa County election official Tina Peters is innocent.
Anita Connors, a board member of the Mountains Republican Club, said she was at the protest, located at the intersection of Timberline and Prospect Roads, in support of Peters “because she didn’t break any laws; she did her job.”
“She’s the only election clerk in the country who had the foresight to protect the voters’ votes before they were deleted from the system,” Connors said.
Peters was convicted in October of attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, violation of duty, and failure to comply with the Secretary of State, all stemming from actions she took as Mesa County Clerk during the 2020 election. She was sentenced to nine years in custody.
“She has concrete proof that the election in Mesa County was rigged. She has concrete proof that the Dominion voting machine was rigged,” said a protester named Mike, who declined to give his last name.
Mesa County District Attorney Daniel Rubenstein investigated these claims and stated in a May, 2022, report that “this investigation has not uncovered any evidence to suggest that the vote count for both elections was not complete and proper.”
Another supporter at the event, Pat Sebern, said, “We’re just supporting Tina Peters and think she was very unjustly charged,” adding, “After a very one-sided, unconstitutional trial, she was sentenced to nine years in prison for doing her job.”
Darcy Schoening, a state Republican Party official who’s running to be the next leader of the Colorado Republican Party, attended the protest, as did Republican Trent Leisy, a failed 2024 congressional candidate in Colorado.
“It was an honor to attend yesterday’s event for Tina Peters,” said Schoening in a Facebook post. “She called from the jail, and it was great to hear from her. I’ve called our new AG to investigate the corrupt judge that handed down such an excessive sentence to Tina, and for [Colorado Gov. Jared] Polis to have his federal funding cut to his pet programs unless he issues a pardon to this 70-year-old woman.”
Jack Strandquist, a Navy veteran from Berthoud, was at the march with his wife, Claire. “We believe in election integrity,” he said. “We believe that Tina exposed election fraud.” He went on to say that his real concern is what he views as a lack of investigation into Peters’ evidence, saying, “was the 2020 election stolen? Heck, I don’t know. But no one has bothered to look into it.”
Another man, Jerry Kelley, said that the Dominion voting machines pose a serious risk to election integrity and that Peters found “level three election fraud,” or fraud at the levels of the voting machines. He said that “if the truth doesn’t get out, the citizens will never know to fix this election system,” adding, “we voted for years with paper ballots manually in a single day and had no problem doing that. We need to go back to that.”
Kelley believes that “both parties are cheaters” and that politicians on both sides of the aisle have engaged in election fraud.
Dee Valdez Pepper, one of the organizers of the march, said, “We want people to be aware and we’re hoping that we can find some honest professional journalists who can tell the story accurately, but we don’t have a lot of hope.”
She said that 72 countries use Dominion voting machines and that, “as these countries move away from these voting machines, it becomes a country run by the people instead of by a tyrant.”
Pepper stated that 29,000 access records were deleted from the Mesa County voting machines after a trusted build.
She asked, “If you’re not doing anything wrong, then why don’t you want anyone to know about it?”
Passing cars frequently honked in what appeared to be a supportive way, but there were also several incidents in which drivers shouted angrily at the crowd. One woman repeatedly yelled that they “must be on the wrong side of I-25.”
Police were also called to the scene and told that a passerby had tried to rip a sign out of someone’s hands, but those who spoke to the police declined to comment.
On February 7, Peters and her attorneys filed an application for a writ of habeas corpus. Citing Peters’ age, health concerns, and the non-violent nature of her crimes, the application “asks this Court to order the release of Ms. Peters on bond pending appellate review of her case because the denial of bail pending review violates Ms. Peters’ rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”
Photo: Neary
