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Local election officials are the lifeblood of American democracy. They, and not the president or Congress, matter most to executive choices, and that’s what made Tina Peters’ crime so heinous.
Peters was the county clerk in Mesa County, Colorado, during the 2020 election. Following the election, he signed documents certifying that all results in his county were equal. Later, however, he was convinced by the claims of Donald Trump and others that the election was rigged. Peters ordered security cameras to be turned off, then allowed a dissident activist to access voting data from his county. He lied to the staff, got a badge under someone else’s name. When the data was leaked, he falsely claimed ignorance. (The county eventually had to replace all of its voting machines.)
In 2024, Peters was found guilty of four felonies and three felonies related to the case, and was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison. (He pleaded not guilty.) On Friday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, announced that he had commuted Peters’ sentence, allowing him to be released from prison on June 1. This is a serious mistake. Perhaps Polis accepted threats and pressure from Trump to pervert justice, but he insists he did not. Whatever the motivation, sympathy for Peters undermines the rule of law, and will embolden those who seek to sabotage the election.
Peters became a key factor for Trump and his aides — “the most prominent MAGA inmate still in prison,” according to my colleague Yvonne Wingett Sanchez. he wrote last year. Peters was very popular because he was one of the very few people involved in the denial of the election after 2020 to face negative consequences. Trump himself escaped trial or conviction, and had shown mercy to others, but because Peters was convicted in federal court, he could not pardon him.
Instead, Trump spent months blaming the police and punishing Colorado, including moving the US Space Command to Alabama, killing water projectand close the climate research center. This is a terrible abuse of federal power: the president, for his own political purposes, trying to force a free country to release a properly convicted prisoner, using public money. It’s very similar, in fact, to how Trump tried to swindle Ukraine, leading to his first impeachment.
Polis claims not that he was armed but that he reached a decision for his own benefit, which could have been worse. He suggested that Peters was punished for questioning the election. “It is not a mistake in our country to believe that the world is flat,” Polis he told it New York Times. “It is not wrong to believe that voting machines are faulty.” It just is—but acting on those beliefs can be wrong. Peters didn’t just tell people the election was rigged; he took actions that violated the law based on that misconception.
Fraud and abuse by election officials like Peters are, ironically, far greater threats to election integrity than the false claims he has supported. Because his position gave him the privilege of power, his claims have also made the job of election officials who are trying to do the right thing more difficult. A group representing Colorado county clerks opposed clemency for Peters, citing serious threats from his supporters. The Republican district attorney who prosecuted Peters told them Times that he opposed the move and asked the governor to talk to the Republican county commissioners who had to clear him.
Polis gave Peters mercy when many Popular Democrats it is insisting the need for stricter accountability for Trump and the people around him. (The Polis decision drew widespread criticism from high-ranking Democrats in Colorado and elsewhere.) Gentleness and leniency can be virtues, but only when the offender has shown a willingness to change or is part of a disadvantaged group. Peters doesn’t seem particularly remorseful. In his plea for mercy, he said that his actions were “mistakes” and added, “Going forward, I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.” This pardon did not convince the governor’s clemency advisory board, according to Timesand it does not fit well with his presence on social networks, where he has continued to portray himself as a persecuted whistleblower. Peters also ran for secretary of state in 2022. When he lost the GOP primary, he blamed—you guessed it—fraud.
Instead, compassion seems to have convinced many who rejected the 2020 election that they were right all along. I have reported on pardon pipeline to prison for the people involved in the January 6 riots who were released by Trump and then committed more crimes, and new examples. keep showing up. Those who rejected the election have taken high positions in the government, including manage election security in the Department of Homeland Security, and others may be elected governor this year.
The best example, of course, is the president himself. Trump repeatedly avoided bad results: He was impeached by the House but acquitted by the Senate because Republicans who hated him were. who do not like to vote hard. The state’s case against him in Georgia fell apart because of misconduct by the Fulton County district attorney. The Justice Department brought charges, but both Supreme Courts granted former presidents broad immunity from formal action and ran out the clock to get him to trial.
Emboldened by getting off without serious harm, Trump has not only abused his power to push for mercy for Peters. He has also started where he left off in 2020, starting a a broad effort to derail the 2026 midterms and spreading false claims of fraud.
Two months ago, political scientist Seth Masket, an expert on national politics at the University of Denver, called Peters’ continued imprisonment “a one-person measure of democratic health,” writing that “if Trump can undermine democracy in a solid blue state with control of the Democratic Trifecta and one of the best electoral systems and highest turnout rates in the country, he can do it anywhere.” Polis’ decision on Friday makes the sick even sicker.
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A federal jury on the side of OpenAI and its leadership in the case brought by Elon Muskrejecting Musk’s claim that OpenAI has betrayed its original non-profit mission by becoming a for-profit business. The ruling removes a major obstacle to the company’s plans to go public.
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Evening Read
Gen Z’s Main Dividing Line
By Faith Hill
Less than two years ago, Gen Z was renamed. Donald Trump had been re-elected. Exit polls suggested that young voters—especially teenagers—had helped bring about the Republican victory. Rather suddenly, a generation associated with climate activism and trigger warnings became known for manosphere podcasts, fiscal conservatismand gender relations are so pervasive that they have contributed to national fears about fertility rates.
But a lot has changed since 2024. Trump has started (so far inappropriate) war with Iran, which he said would not happen. His administration’s handling of the Epstein files, in which his name appears prominently, has been criticized by Democrats and Republicans alike. He vowed to lower the price of gas and groceries; instead, they keep rising. His approval rating has taken a hit record lowand he is losing favor among key voting blocs such as independents and Latinos. Journalists and political analysts continue to speculate and discuss: Will the young people who moved to the right side crawl back to the other side?
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this magazine.
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