We know that Democrat politicians and judges can be vicious and corrupt, but with regard to Tina Peters they outdid themselves.
Tina Peters has been sitting in a Colorado state prison since October 2024.
During the 2020 election, Tina Peters was the top election official in Mesa County Colorado. In October 2024, the 70-year-old widow was sentenced to 9 years in prison by District Court Judge Matthew Barrett. Given the lengthy sentence, you might think that Peters molested a child, pushed someone onto a subway track, or stole $50,000 from a Mesa County bank. You’d be wrong. To Colorado Democrats, her crimes were much more serious. They included:
Accurately exposing enormous errors in two consecutive county elections
Expressing her view that America’s election controls were too weak
What Tina Peters did and what she found
Basically, Peters made a copy of the county election database and put it into the hands of two data experts— Walter Daugherity and Jeffrey O’Donnell. For making the copy and giving it to the data experts, Peters was charged with several felonies and misdemeanors.
During her trial, the Peters defense team produced an 87-page report that had been prepared by Daugherity and O’Donnell. In great detail, the report irrefutably proved that the county’s election data base had been, in some unknown manner, downloaded and materially altered in two consecutive elections— the November 2020 election and a local election held during the following spring. Here is the central claim of the report. It has never been disputed by anyone — before, during, or after the trial:
“There was an unauthorized creation of new election databases during early voting in the 2020 General Election on October 21, 2020, followed by the digital reloading of 20,346 ballot records into the new election databases, making the original voter intent recorded from the ballots unknown. In addition, 5,567 ballots in 58 batches did not have their digital records copied to the new database, although the votes from the ballots in those batches were recorded in the Main election database” (report, p. 3).
In other words, after people had been voting for a few days, someone (or something) deleted the election database and installed a “new” database, minus 5,567 ballots. As a result of this activity, none of the original voter intent is known. In total, “over 25% of the County’s ... entire election, cannot be verified and should not have been counted.” Those records are gone forever, and we know that only because of the efforts of Tina Peters and the experts she retained.
To produce the database copy and get it to outside experts, Tina Peters had to break certain provisions of state law: illegal acts for which she was prepared to pay a price. However, those legal infractions were trivial compared to the important civic service she performed by correctly identifying major election anomalies.
Peters was never thanked by state officials for her efforts. Why? It seems that no Democrat, anywhere, is willing to acknowledge the vulnerability of elections in America (at least, not the elections they won).
Actions taken by the county prosecutor
Rather than thanking Tina Peters for her successful efforts, law enforcement and the District Attorney (Daniel Rubenstein) took the following actions, leading to 10 felony and misdemeanor charges:
Heavily-armed FBI agents conducted early-morning raids of the homes of Peters and three associates. In one case a battering ram was used to break in the door. In another case, a teenage daughter was made to stand in her underwear on the front steps of the home.
After the raids, Tina Peters received death threats, so pillow czar Mike Lindell provided her with security and housing for several weeks. Because of that act of kindness, Peters was charged with an ethics violation (for receiving a gift valued over $65).
Peters was arrested for allegedly taking pictures in the court room, without permission. To execute the arrest, Peters was followed to a bagel shop where three police officers demanded her I-phone. They then put her in handcuffs.
Because Tina Peters had tried to keep her cell phone from the police, she was charged and convicted of “obstruction of government operations.”
In August 2023, Tina Peters asked the district attorney if she could have access to her passport for a few hours so that she could enroll in the TSA PreCheck program for airplane travelers. The DA opposed the request because Peters had dangerous associates: Who were those alleged criminals? They were President Trump and the other 18 defendants charged by Fani Willis.
Conduct by Judge Matthew Barrett
During the trial, Judge Matthew Barrett was not particularly interested in the facts of the case or in the report of the experts. When Peters tried to explain that the election database may have been improperly altered, Barrett simply said, “the votes are the votes.”
The judge’s true feelings were on full display during sentencing. Obviously, he resented the defendant’s politics, and resented her popularity and support.
Regarding her views on election integrity, Judge Barrett called Peters a “charlatan” who peddled “a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
Peters was not sympathetic because she had “four lawyers” helping her, and rode in “jets all over the country.”
Tina Peters was a “privileged” person (even though she became a widow a few days before the trial started). In the judge’s opinion, Peters used her privilege to “obtain power, a following and fame.”
“...At the end of the day,” Barrett said, “you cared about the jets, the podcasts and the people fawning over you.”
Despite the fact that Peters had already lost her job as county recorder, the judge felt she had to go to prison for a long time and right away (no waiting for appeal) because she was “such a danger to our community.” Otherwise “...she can preach these lies, the undermining of our democratic process...” In other words, she might continue to exercise her first amendment right to free speech. Worse yet, she might expose the huge defects in the Mesa County election system.
The moment she was sentenced, the judge sent Tina Peters to prison. There was no release pending appeal. After all, she was “dangerous.”
The Colorado Court of Appeals has misgivings
Recently (mid-January 2026), Peters’ attorneys presented arguments before the Colorado Court of Appeals, and those arguments are still being considered. Based on the comments made by the panel of judges, it is obvious that the court has misgivings about this case.
Apparently, the prosecution made a serious technical error. As reported in the Denver Gazette, Peters
One skeptical judge asked:
Another judge declared:
“I am baffled as to the position that’s being taken that somehow we can overlook that.”
The three-judge panel also expressed concern regarding the apparent bias of Judge Barrett. One judge noted that, in sentencing Peters, Barrett seemed to impose an extra-harsh sentence due to her First Amendment protected views concerning election security. Clearly, the words “snake-oil” and “charlatan” were inappropriate and inflammatory.
It is gratifying that the Court of Appeals may give Tina Peters some much-deserved relief. It is probable that her 9-year sentence will be reduced.
However, the central and most important issue of this case is still unresolved. Major election anomalies were identified by Tina Peters— a fact that state officials and a petty Democrat judge simply refuse to acknowledge.
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