A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
A former Colorado election clerk and ally of President Trump is out of prison. The state's Democratic governor commuted her sentence. Colorado Public Radio's Bente Birkeland has more.
BENTE BIRKELAND, BYLINE: Former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters was serving a nearly nine-year sentence after being convicted in 2024 for her actions related to tampering with voting machines. Peters allowed an unauthorized person to gain access to the machines about six months after the 2020 presidential election to search for vote rigging. Hours after her release from prison, after serving just shy of two years, she appeared on the Steve Bannon podcast "War Room."
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TINA PETERS: I know that the Democrats are going to cheat, and no one's really addressing the problem that the Mesa - that I spent my time in prison as retribution for. And that was exposing the election machines that allow the votes to be flipped.
BIRKELAND: That was not true. State audits and hand counts showed the machines were secure and accurately counted the paper ballots. So far, the courts have upheld her guilty verdict. The issue is the sentence. The Colorado Court of Appeals said her election-denying beliefs may have led the trial judge to give her a longer sentence. The state's Democratic governor, Jared Polis, agreed. He said her harsh sentence was influenced by her, quote, "nutty beliefs."
JARED POLIS: It's outrageous that anybody, you know, spreads lies about elections, but free speech is a cornerstone of our constitutional rights and our democracy, and that should not have been a factor in sentencing.
BIRKELAND: The governor faced immediate blowback. The state Democratic Party censured Polis and barred him from speaking at party functions. Polis is term-limited this year. Democrats say commuting Peters' sentence emboldens Trump and makes the job even more difficult for county clerks.
For NPR News, I'm Bente Birkeland in Colorado.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLACK HILL & SILENT ISLAND'S "NIGHT IN A MOSSY HUT") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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