When Election Officials Believe the Big Lie

 What Can Happen When Election Officials Believe the Big Lie?

 

Nine months after the 2020 election, the call came in. The Colorado secretary of state’s office was on the phone and wanted to know why the passwords for Mesa County’s election equipment were on the internet for anyone to see. But the powers that be in Mesa County didn’t even know the passwords had leaked. 

“We’re saying, ‘What are you talking about?’” recalled Mesa County Commissioner Scott McInnis.

Images of screens displaying the passwords had been shared a few days earlier on the chat app Telegram by a QAnon leader. The Colorado secretary of state launched an investigation and issued an order for Tina Peters, the county clerk, to let them inspect the equipment and try to get to the bottom of what happened. 

But there was a problem. Peters wasn’t in Mesa County. She was on her way to South Dakota for a “Cyber Symposium” hosted by Mike Lindell, the CEO of MyPillow and one of the most prominent peddlers of the Big Lie. Data from Mesa County election equipment hard drives were later displayed at the symposium. The man talking about them was that same QAnon leader — Ron Watkins — the former administrator of the message board where Q, the shadowy figure behind the QAnon conspiracy movement, posted the bulk of their posts. Watkins is so deeply entangled with QAnon that many experts believe he may have been Q himself.

These days, Peters is back in Mesa County. She has to be. She can’t leave the state after being recently indicted by a grand jury on 10 counts, including seven felony charges, for allegedly using a false identity and lying to state employees while allowing an unauthorized individual to make copies of the election equipment hard drive. When I visited last month, I found her at the Hilton DoubleTree in Grand Junction — the county seat — where she was attending the county GOP Assembly to campaign for her spot on the primary ballot. She’s now running for secretary of state. There, sitting on a patio with her bright white bob sparkling in the sun, she told me that her decision to copy the election equipment hard drives was not only allowed but required. And she believes those copies have revealed serious vulnerabilities in the county’s election equipment.

“If I want somebody to come in and preserve my election records, that is my role, and that is my duty,” Peters said. “That’s what I did.” 

But the way she chose to go about “preserving” those records has wrought havoc on Mesa County and on Peters herself. Addressing the fallout of her actions, including having to replace election equipment deemed compromised by the state, has cost more than $1 million of tax-payer money, according to McInnis. Her actions also led to the indictment charges, for which she faces up to 28 years in jail and $2.7 million in fines, with the potential for more charges coming. And it has sown further mistrust in the election system among voters, all while failing to unearth any actual evidence of election fraud. 

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-when-an-election-official-believes-the-big-lie/

 

Peters maintains that what she did inside the Mesa County clerk’s office was within the bounds of her job responsibilities. Law enforcement has questions about just who copied the election records, alleging that Peters lied about who helped her. 

HART VAN DENBURG / COLORADO PUBLIC RADIO VIA AP

There are likely hundreds of would-be Tina Pe

https://fivethirtyeight.com/fe