Prosecutors in a western Colorado county say they found no evidence of tampering in the 2020 presidential election as alleged by a clerk who has become a prominent voice among those promoting former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election
FILE - Mesa County, Colo., clerk Tina Peters, talks on the west steps of the State Capitol on Tuesday, April 5, 2022, in downtown Denver. Prosecutors in a western Colorado county say they found no evidence of tampering in the 2020 presidential election as alleged by the clerk who has become a prominent voice among those promoting former President Donald Trump’s false claims of a stolen election.
There was “extensive evidence” that Peters' conclusions were false and no proof found of outside election interference, Rubinstein wrote in a summary to commissioners. One of the major claims in Peters' report was that separate election-related databases were created during the 2020 general election and then again in the 2021 municipal election. It said that interviews with office workers determined this could not have been caused by human actions.
“It’s unfortunate that bad actors are trying to use their own misunderstanding of our systems to cast doubt on our elections with these amateur reports," the association's executive director, Matt Crane, said in a statement on the investigation's findings. State election officials first became aware of a security breach in Mesa County last summer when a photo and video of confidential voting system passwords were posted on social media and a conservative website.