AURORA | Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman joined more than 30 current and former Republican election officials this week in signing an open letter calling the Colorado GOP’s support for election conspiracist and former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters a “slap in the face.”
A grand jury indicted Peters in 2022 on seven felony charges and three misdemeanors for allegedly tampering with voting machines in a fruitless search for election fraud following Donald Trump’s loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
Peters’ trial on the charges — which include attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation and first-degree official misconduct — was scheduled to begin Feb. 9. Earlier this week, the trial was delayed until July after Peters fired her attorneys for the second time since her indictment.
“We are encouraged that soon, Peters will meet her fate in court and the public can understand the extent of her unlawful actions,” the letter shared by Coffman and former Larimer County clerk Angela Myers reads.
“To be clear, there was no fraud in Mesa County elections. Tina Peters led a willful breach of her voting system. Peters did not uncover any fraud or threats to Mesa County elections. In the end, she herself was the threat to election integrity in the county.”
Peters has for years cast unsubstantiated doubts on state and local election outcomes, fueling her popularity among the subset of conservatives who believe Biden’s win in 2020 was the result of widespread fraud despite the absence of evidence supporting that claim.
Late last week, subscribers to the Colorado Republican Party’s email list received a message titled “The GOP Stands With Tina Peters” that described Peters’ indictment as retaliation for “her efforts to inform the entire country that our elections are compromised.”
The Feb. 1 email — which was signed by GOP state party Chairman Dave Williams, Vice Chairwoman Hope Scheppelman and Secretary Anna Ferguson — urged recipients to “unite in prayer and support for Tina Peters so that the jury sees this for what it really is and acquits her of all charges.”
To the signatories of the open letter sent Monday, the party’s embrace of Peters is offensive.
Before becoming mayor in 2019, Coffman served from 2007 to 2009 as Colorado’s secretary of state, whose job includes ensuring the integrity of the state’s elections. The 32 other signatories include other current and former Republican secretaries of state, state legislators and county clerks.
“We want to state unequivocally, Tina Peters is not a hero,” their open letter reads. “We expect better from the leadership of the Colorado Republican Party, a party in which we have served loyally for years. We are dedicated public servants who take our sacred responsibility and sworn oaths with absolute seriousness.”
The Colorado GOP did not immediately respond to an invitation to comment on the letter.
In addition to Coffman and Myers, other signatories include former Arapahoe County clerks Matt Crane, Nancy Doty and Donetta Davis, who also served as secretary of state; former Adams County Clerk Stan Martin; and former Douglas County clerks Sheri Davis and Carole Murray, who served as a state representative.
As it now stands, and this choice in itself is dismayingly repugnant, the results of this fall’s election will see Trump losing re-election by an even wider margin these conspiracy nuts can deny and refute. Neither Biden nor Trump should be our next POTUS. But given this bizarre choice (seriously, is there no one else willing to take the job? Anyone either party can put forward?) let’s pray and sigh in relief that Trump is soundly defeated again.
Is there still time for a winnable third party ticket?
I beg to differ. There are serious threats to elections throughout Colorado, not just Mesa County. I invite you to run a sidebar on the way that, just south of the Aurora city line, Centennial ran their City Council District 4 “election” just a handful of months ago. The voters of District 4 were given a “ballot” where the “choice” was to vote for Don Sheehan, or have no say whatsoever in who makes the Ordinances of the City of Centennial, which they must obey. Sheehan’s current term was a done deal before these ballots were even printed. In District 4 there was not even a write-in space for a dissenting voter to put their own name, as I did in District 2. And I was only able to do that much because of what I learned in the City Council “election” of 2021, when Stephanie Piko and two other councilfolk “earned” THEIR current terms before THOSE ballots were printed. You cannot rig an “election” more thoroughly than that.
Yes, you are correct. The biggest threats are the lies, conspiracy theories, and just DUMB people believing anything that is said to comport with their views despite not having one shred of evidence!
Congratulations to those Republicans that are NOT in the Trump cult!
May your numbers grow and get back to governing rather than believing in “space based lasers” “Deep State”, “Replacement theory”, or the deceased Venezuelan dictator interfering in our election process.
News Flash!!! Trump doesn’t believe it any of it himself. But wants to make fools of those who do believe it. So just enjoy life being DUMB and shameless.
81,000,000 votes? Really? Colorado is rife with corruption. Why were Dominion machines wiped months after the election when the law says 23 months are required? You clowns aren’t going to ask that question are you?
Sure Tim,
Ok another space based theorist. Ask yourself why Fox News had to pay $787.5 million to Dominion voting? I think your mind is in the “Deep State of Denial. Do you realize how DUMB your comments are? Make sure you honor your “orange headed Jesus”.
Talk about clowns. The head clown is “your dear leader”, you know the convicted rapist! Oh by the way the moon is not made of cheese, even if you believe it us.
Because they weren’t
Mayor Coffman and others- The wholly honorable thing to do at this point is to simply leave the GOP. Why remain, honestly?
Ditto, any Democrat disgusted by the manner your leadership is caving to cheating to win or weaponizing the DOJ.
The duopoly the GOP and the Democratic party have established for themselves is a comedic tragedy. Just look at the mental fitness and character of their respective candidates for President. What a failed process on both sides.
John Adams had it right:
“There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.”
This article fails to mention any of the facts of Tina Peter’s case. The Colorado secretary of state (with employees from Dominion) erased info from the tabulators that were used in Nov 2020 elections. This data was required to be kept for 22 months. Tina Peters made a before and after copy of the data that was stored. The two copies are not the same. Changes were made. Dispute that.
None of that is even remotely true. Which is exactly why she was indicted by a grand jury.