Big Lie Election Ratf*cker Tina Peters Running For Colorado Secretary Of State

Must be 2022 then.

It normally wouldn't be national news that a county clerk and recorder from a small county has announced a run for secretary of state. But few county clerks are as far from normal as Tina Peters, the clerk and recorder for Mesa County, Colorado.

For starters, most candidates for statewide office aren't under state, local, and federal investigation for allegedly tampering with election equipment and (allegedly) helping to leak sensitive codes for election computers to a far-Right conspiracy site. Most candidates for secretary of state weren't blocked by court order from overseeing elections because of those ongoing investigations. And most candidates for state office weren't caught on video apparently kicking a cop while being arrested on new charges, a week before announcing their campaigns.

Read More:

 Did Wingnut Colorado Clerk Leak Election Codes To Goddamn Gateway Pundit, Or Wuz She Fraaaamed 

 Court Boots Wingnut CO Election Official For Patriotically Breaking County's Voting Machines 

 Mike Lindell's Favorite Big-Lie-Believin', Alleged Cyber-Criming Colorado Clerk Kicks A Cop 

Yes, that Tina Peters. Fittingly, she made her announcement on the "War Room" podcast hosted by Steve Bannon, who himself is facing federal criminal charges for contempt of Congress because of his refusal to cooperate with a subpoena from the House January 6 Select Committee. Birds of a feather and all that. Oh, wait, I mean innocent victims of the Deep State. Haha, no, I mean slimy crimey fascists.

Peters explained why she's running against incumbent Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D): "I want to keep elections local. I want to fight against the Biden and the radical Left to take over our vote, and I am the wall between your vote and nationalized elections."

This is where we point out that, in the event that Congress does somehow manage to pass voting rights laws that protect the right to vote and set minimum standards for federal elections, a state secretary of state would be obliged to follow that law, making it one more law Peters might ignore.

And it wouldn't hurt her feelings at all if Donald Trump were to endorse her, which we suppose could happen, since Peters is an ardent devotee of MyPillow guy Mike Lindell and his baroque fantasies about how the 2020 election was rigged against Trump, even maybe in tiny Mesa County, where Trump won by 28 points. (Despite that, Trump lost Colorado overall, which proves the fix was in.)

As the Denver Post recaps, Peters certainly seems well-qualified for a term in prison, if not in office:

Peters is vying for the state’s top election position amid a grand jury investigation into allegations of election equipment tampering and official misconduct in Mesa County that launched last month. She is also facing multiple ethics and campaign finance violations and was barred by a Mesa County District Court judge from overseeing the 2021 election. The secretary of state filed another lawsuit hoping to prevent Peters from overseeing the 2022 election after Peters refused to repudiate a statement she made about Dominion voting machines and agree to additional election security protocols.

The Mesa County clerk was also arrested last week on allegations of obstruction while officers attempted to execute a search warrant for an iPad that belonged to her. She is under investigation for a possible felony attempt to influence a public servant for allegedly recording or attempting to record a court hearing against a judge’s order.

Well sure, when you put it that way, perhaps she sounds a little extreme, but you have to remember that to people who live in the alternate rightwing reality where Donald Trump is still president, "laws" are mere obstructions put in place by evil Democrats to thwart real Americans from doing what they please.

Peters is joining three other Republicans who are already running for the secretary of state nomination; Peters will actually be the third delusional Big Lie supporter in the field. In addition to Peters and two others who are sure that voting machines are rigged, the primary race also includes former Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder Pam Anderson, who has explicitly rejected lies and conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Why, she even said that 2020 was "the most secure election we’ve had to date," which seems a position calculated to gain the respect of sane people and lose in a post-Trump GOP primary.

Incumbent Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) issued a statement from her campaign — observing the old-fashioned distinction between her job and her candidacy — saying that Peters is

unfit to be Secretary of State and a danger to Colorado elections. Peters compromised voting equipment to try to prove conspiracies, costing Mesa County taxpayers nearly one million dollars. She works with election deniers, spreads lies about elections, was removed from overseeing the 2021 Mesa County election, and is under criminal investigation by a grand jury.

Well gosh, we just aren't sure. Those all sound like minimum qualifications for Republicans who want to run elections these days — and the terrifying thing is that there's no reason to think they'd stop Peters from winning the primary. We'd really like to think that if that happens — and if she stays out of jail — Peters would lose to Griswold by a landslide in November.

But people are crazy, and it would be a mistake to dismiss Peters's chances merely because she's out of touch with reality and under investigation for alleged election criming.

[ Denver Post / KDVR-TV ]

Yr Wonkette is funded entirely by reader donations. If you can, please give $5 or $10 a month so we can lie awake at night worrying about the fate of democracy, instead of worrying about the fate of our mommyblog.

 Do your Amazon shopping through this link, because reasons .