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A half-dozen Democratic, Republican and unaffiliated Colorado county clerks appeared together at an online press conference Tuesday, November 25, pleading for Governor Jared Polis to keep former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters in state custody and to publicly announce his decision to do so.
The message from the clerks, who’ve spent years living with the fallout from Peters’s election machine breach, was blunt. It follows a letter sent by the bipartisan Colorado County Clerks Association (CCCA) last Friday, urging Polis not to transfer Peters to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons as requested by the Trump administration. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser and Secretary of State Jena Griswold also called on Polis to reject the request last week.
Any move to transfer Peters to federal custody would send a dangerous signal that elected officials can sidestep consequences, according to her former peers, who say the governor’s silence is already putting them at risk following a spike in threats over the weekend after the CCCA letter was made public.
Clerks described a sudden surge of hostility since news broke that the Trump administration had formally requested Peters’s transfer to federal custody on November 12. The Colorado Department of Corrections said it’s reviewing the request, but the governor has not publicly revealed whether he supports or opposes the move, and clerks say they’ve heard nothing privately, either.
“His indecision, or his refusal to publicly address this decision, is already causing harm to clerks across Colorado,” Boulder County Clerk Molly Fitzpatrick said during today’s event. “Every day that this decision lingers in silence, the pressure on us grows. We need Governor Polis to stand with us, now.”
According to Fitzpatrick, county officials saw an “immediate spike in hostility” after the CCCA’s November 21 letter to Polis, including messages explicitly invoking Peters’s name and threatening violence.
“This is not abstract for us,” Fitzpatrick said. “We are the ones who will face the consequences of any decision that suggests her actions were not serious or that accountability can be negotiated.”
Peters, now seventy, is serving a nine-year state prison sentence after a Mesa County jury convicted her on four felonies and three misdemeanors tied to a 2021 voting machine breach that turned her into a national heroine for presidential election deniers. Her actions shattered public trust and contributed to a wave of conspiracy theories that continue to land at election officials’ doors.
Jackson County Clerk Hayle Johnson, the current CCCA president, framed the governor’s choice as a test of the rule of law.
“If you transfer Tina Peters to federal custody, you are making a statement that elected officials are above the law,” Johnson said. “This is a very dangerous precedent. I urge you, Governor Polis: Stand with Colorado county clerks, stand with democracy.”
Routt County Clerk Jenny Thomas said their work has become “louder, meaner, heavier and divided,” and that clerks now operate with a level of fear that didn’t exist before Peters’s breach. “We price out shatterproof glass for our office windows,” she detailed. “We memorize escape routes in every room that we walk into. We don’t go places alone.”
Thomas rejected the suggestion from Peters’s lawyers and supporters that the former clerk is a political prisoner in poor health.
“Governor, Tina Peters is not a victim. She is a convicted felon,” Thomas said. “Either the law means something, or it means nothing. What she did hurt every county in Colorado.”
Over the past two weeks, Peters’s attorneys have filed court documents claiming she is shivering, coughing and unable to sleep inside La Vista Correctional Facility in Pueblo. Their court filings say Peters lies on a steel bunk that pains her, she receives menacing threats on postcards from Florida, and she has experienced dangerously cold temperatures in her cell. Those filings, and the formal request from federal officials to take her into federal custody, have triggered a celebratory push among Peters’s allies, along with loud demands from county clerks for Polis to slam the door on those requests.
Peters is serving a state sentence. A president cannot pardon her state convictions, so moving her into federal custody would shift her into a system that the White House controls, a fact widely noted by her supporters.
Denver County Clerk Paul Lopez, a Democrat, cast the question in national political terms: Will Colorado indulge “the whims of a reckless president who continues to betray our Republic” or defend its election workers? “Any gesture that panders to Donald Trump’s ongoing assault on the rule of law and the integrity of our elections is a betrayal to the thousands of bipartisan election workers,” Lopez said. “Our democracy is not a bargaining chip.”
Kiowa County Clerk Adrienne Yates said Peters’s transfer would “inevitably invite unnecessary scrutiny and sensationalized attention,” worsening conditions for clerks in rural counties already stretched thin. Weld County Clerk Carly Koppes, a Republican, described the “gut-wrenching” moment in 2021 when Peters was charged and the death threats that followed.
Koppes said she had to hide her pregnancy because of harassment related to Peters, and still strategizes with her family over which route to take to the grocery store. “The impact is real. The threats are credible,” she said. “Governor Polis, I plead to you: Do not allow Ms. Peters to be moved to federal custody.”
The clerks stressed that they have asked for a meeting with the governor for the last week, but still haven’t received a response.
In a public statement issued November 21 to address the CCCA letter, Polis said he was reviewing the request and believes Colorado has “one of the best elections systems in the country.” Four days later, clerks sharply criticized that statement.
“He did not respond to the heart of our letter, which we were deeply offended by,” Fitzpatrick said. “His silence is deafening.”
Polis’s office sent another statement out today, November 25, a few hours after the county clerk’s presser. According to his staff, the governor “welcomes an opportunity” to meet with the clerks, but the statement doesn’t address Peters.
“No election official should have to fear for their safety just for doing their jobs. Colorado has among the best, most trustworthy election systems in the nation, and Colorado voters should rest easy that dedicated officials are maintaining our nation-leading voting system. The Governor welcomes an opportunity to meet with the clerks to hear from them directly and has signed many laws to protect the integrity of our free and fair elections, including increasing penalties for threatening public officials. Governor Polis takes his responsibilities seriously and has been clear that he will take threats from the federal government head-on – especially when they undermine our democracy – which is why we have vigorously defended Colorado’s values during this turbulent time,” the statement says.
As the clerks’ press conference ended, Fitzpatrick reiterated the plea that began the call. “We are the ones feeling the heat,” she said. “Every time there is attention on Tina Peters, we feel the brunt of it.”
