Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters—a “high-ranking Election Division staff worker”—and a “mystery man” reportedly accessed the secure Election Division room where, the following day, Colorado election equipment was going to be upgraded. The Daily Sentinel reports that these three individuals are alleged to have made copies of the hard drive and copies of the election management software. Some of these files and images are suspected of having made their way onto an election conspiracy theory website. Peters is suspected of having created this “serious breach” of Colorado elections security to help fuel Trump-supporting conspiracy theories that massive voter fraud led to the single most unpopular president losing his election in recent memory.

The Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, who has opened an investigation into the breach, says that Peters will be replaced in upcoming elections. This comes days after Secretary of State Jena Griswold ordered 41 pieces of election equipment replaced, saying that the security breach had compromised their integrity. That equipment must be replaced and certified by the end of August, or the county must hand-count ballots in upcoming elections. The Colorado Sun reports that while Secretary of State Griswold cannot have Peters removed from office, she can bar Peters from overseeing this November’s elections. 

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            Tuesday, Aug 17, 2021 ·  7:43:35 PM +00:00

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      Walter Einenkel
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    CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/17/politics/fbi-voting-machine-colorado/index.html?utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+rss%2Fcnn_latest+%28RSS%3A+CNN+-+Most+Recent%29">reports</a> that the Denver FBI office has been contacted and conducting their own investigation into the Tina Peters sketchiness, as FBI spokesperson Courtney Bernal told the news outlet that they are working along with the district attorney’s office "on the forensic review and analysis of county voting systems to determine if there was a potential federal criminal violation." 

The Colorado Secretary of State’s office released a statement on Monday outlining the intricacies of their election security system, saying:

The Daily Sentinel has identified one of the two mystery people as Gerald Wood. Peters, this other staff worker—whose name is being withheld by the Sentinel at this time—allegedly passed off Wood as an employee of the county, giving him security access he did not have. The Colorado Sun reports that investigators believe the drives were copied and taken on May 23. The result: Images taken from the room were posted on a conspiracy website. They contained passwords and other delicate information and were taken a couple of days later, allegedly by Wood.

In a release to the media, the Secretary of State’s Office says, “[n]ew information acquired during the Department of State’s investigation reveals that the secure room where this election equipment is stored was accessed on the evening of Sunday, May 23, outside of normal work hours by the Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters; Gerald Wood, the unauthorized individual who attended the Mesa County trusted build; and another Mesa County Clerk and Recorder employee.”

The evidence presented so far is rather damning. Earlier reports say that Peters’ office had security cameras turned off two days before the “trusted build” of the elections system. According to Secretary of State Griswold, blacking out your security video feed for a week or two around the time that your equipment is being serviced to make sure it is secure is not a thing anyone does, and more importantly, is not protocol precisely because it is such a dubious thing to do.

Subsequently, the Sentinel reports that “computer logs of swipe cards that were used to unlock secure doors in that part of Peters’ office. Wood apparently had such a card even though he isn’t an employee of the clerk’s office.” Griswold also says that her office has contacted the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency because of the severity of this security breach and what that means for other localities across the country who may have officials like Tina Peters, under the impression that their opinions matter more than the integrity of the elections.

Peters has been relatively mum when asked for statements by Colorado news outlets. She did, however, get a private jet flight (care of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell) to appear on a panel at his recent Scamporium Election Fraud Symposium Cyber Merry-Go-Round, where she implied that any evidence being collected from her offices by Colorado’s Secretary of State was being planted. It’s a great conundrum for MAGA-heads who are happy being living, breathing embodiments of the word conundrum. Peters is being championed as a heroic whistleblower who says she didn’t blow the whistle, but also did, but also not really because the whistles are being blown by the deep state, which is using whistleblowing to fetter her.

At the same time, District Attorney Dan Rubinstein, a Republican, has been investigating whether or not crimes have been committed in concert with this breach. The current chair of the Mesa County Commission, Janet Rowland, told a dozen or so local MAGA residents (who are in the process of pretending Tina Peters is some kind of Robin Hood hero) that before she and her fellow commissioners take any more actions on who or what Tina Peters is and/or deserves, “There is an ongoing investigation, not just by the Secretary of State, but by our own elected district attorney, Dan Rubinstein, who I’m guessing most of you voted for. I’ve known Dan for nearly two decades, I trust him, and he’s a man of integrity. I’m waiting to hear back from him in what he finds in the investigation process.”

The Mesa County Commissioners fielded statements from the local Mesa Trumpites about how we need to return to paper ballots and cannot trust the internet, from people whose entire banking and credit card system is online. Commissioner Rowland pointed out a self-serving twisted logic in the Mesa County MAGA Republicans who believe the country’s election results were a massive fraud, reminding them that Republicans like Mesa County’s own disorderly Lauren Boebert won handily in their county.