Election Denier Tina Peters Loses CO Secretary Of State Primary, Probably Because It Was RIGGED

Golly, what a disappointing birthday present for the MyPillow guy.

Sad news for the Big Lie crowd: Wingnut celebrity Tina Peters, who was indicted for her role in allegedly tampering with election equipment, will not be Colorado's next secretary of state. Peters, the disgraced clerk and recorder for Mesa County, lost badly in yesterday's GOP primary to former Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder Pam Anderson (no relation to the star of Barb Wire, as far as we know). Anderson won the GOP primary with 44 percent of the vote; Peters actually finished third, behind Anderson and Mike O'Donnell, a businessman.

Peters, you may recall, is accused of helping fellow election deniers get access to Mesa County's voting machines, after which copies of the Dominion voting machines computer code — including passwords — were posted online, to "prove" there had been election fraud in 2020. As ever, we'll just note that Mesa County went for Donald Trump with 62 percent of the vote, which you might think would already make claims of ratfuckery unlikely. But you are not a Trump True Believer, so you think weird things.

The loss may be especially galling for MyPillow CEO and election fabulist Mike Lindell, who has boosted Peters from the start . He helped make her a national wingnut hero at last summer's Fraudapalooza (remember when Lindell proved the Big Lie beyond doubt and Trump was restored to office?), and appears to have been helping with her legal bills , too. And to think, yesterday was his birthday! It was celebrated, as is traditional, by a range of rightwing figures you've mostly never heard of offering special discount codes on shitty pillows.

The disappointing news for Lindell notwithstanding, Ms. Anderson will go on to face incumbent Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) in November's general election, and Peters will go back to insisting she's being unjustly railroaded by the Deep State. She got right on that at a watch party last night, telling supporters that she really won, how could there be any other outcome? Peters announced that the primary vote had been manipulated and claimed, “We didn't lose. We just found out more fraud.” She accused Colorado voting officials of "cheating" and told supporters ,

“looking at the results, it’s just so obvious that it should be flipped.”

“It’s not over. Keep the faith,” she said.

The AP notes that one attendee at the watch party, Rick Wyatt, didn't believe either of Peters's opponents had much support, don't be silly:

“How does the top of the ticket become the bottom of the ticket?” Wyatt said. “Elections are rigged.”

Then campaign staff brought a literal dead horse into the venue so Peters and supporters could hit it again and again with a large stick. (Some portions of this account may be hyperbolic.)

Griswold promptly issued a statement pointing out that the state's elections

“have bipartisan oversight throughout the election process.”

“Peters’ continued spread of election lies is no surprise,” Griswold said. “Colorado voters made their voices heard and candidates should respect and accept the results of the free and fair election.”

Well sure, she WOULD say that after rigging the election so that she could run against Anderson, the more experienced and credible candidate, all for the sake of undermining Peters, the plucky underdog who everyone thinks is mad, I tell you, MAD. But she'll show THEM!

Anderson referred only obliquely to Peters and her constant claims that Donald Trump was robbed in 2020, saying at her primary victory party that Republican voters wanted a candidate who'd be a "fair leader" and vowing not to be a partisan hack:

“I will continue my fight for restoring the confidence of Colorado voters against lies and the politicians or interest groups that seek to weaponize elections administration for political advantage,” Anderson said.

As of press time, Anderson had no comment on the brilliance of Barb Wire's plot, in which viewers only gradually realize the movie is a a dystopian science-fiction remake of Casablanca, with her namesake playing a bounty hunter instead of the owner of a cafe.

The AP notes that while high-profile Republicans who denied the 2020 election results have lost their bids for posts where they'd run elections, like Peters in Colorado and Jody Hice in Georgia, several of the flakes have actually made it to the general election, or are poised to do so:

Among those who have advanced to the November election are Wes Allen in Alabama, Diego Morales in Indiana, Jim Marchant in Nevada and Audrey Trujillo in New Mexico. Kristina Karamo in Michigan and Kim Crockett in Minnesota are favorites to win their primaries in August.

But just you wait, you AP enemies of the people — Tina Peters isn't done yet, and she has a flawless computer model proving that not only did she win Colorado's Republican primary for secretary of state, she also won the general election in advance and was sworn into office in May. She'll be announcing the real primary results for the rest of the state's elections shortly, along with an amazing discount code for shitty pillows.

[ Colorado Public Radio / AP ]

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