Since returning to office, the Trump administration has cut funding to Colorado as the president pressured the Democratic governor to free the former election clerk.
DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Friday commuted the sentence of Tina Peters, the former Republican county clerk who was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison for her role in allowing unauthorized access to her county’s election equipment in an attempt to uncover election fraud.
Polis, a Democrat, commuted her sentence to four-and-a-half years and said she would be eligible for parole next month. Before Polis’ commutation, Peters’ earliest parole date would have been March 2028.
Peters has been serving her sentence since April 16, 2025, at a prison in Pueblo after being convicted in 2024 by jurors in Mesa County, a Republican stronghold that supported President Donald Trump.
Peters snuck in an outside computer expert, an associate of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, to make a copy of her county’s Dominion Voting Systems election computer server as state officials updated it in 2021. After Peters joined Lindell onstage at a “cybersymposium” that promised to reveal proof of election rigging, video and photos of the upgrade, including passwords, were posted online.
Based on Colorado law, a sentence like Peters received is cut in half, so a 4 1/2 year sentence is really 2 1/4 years. She is also eligible for time off for good behavior, which is a maximum of 12 days credited each month.
The Colorado Court of Appeals threw out Peters’ sentence in April but upheld her convictions. Democrats in the state legislature were told Polis would wait to act on Peters’ clemency until the appeals court decision. The appeals court sent back her case to Mesa County District Court for Peters to be resentenced because they said the sentence was based, in part, on improper consideration of her right to exercise free speech during her trial.
Polis acted before that district court resentencing.
In an interview with 9NEWS’ Kyle Clark, Polis said he commuted her sentence because he felt she was over-sentenced for expressing inaccurate, but constitutionally protected, views.
“She committed a crime. What’s an issue here is how long the sentence is,” Polis said. “I agree with the appeals court that in the sentencing hearing, the judge incorrectly looked at and considered her bizarre viewpoints, her speech, and held her speech against her.”
Polis said Peters’ commutation was one of nine he was issuing on Friday, along with 35 pardons.
“To be clear, I publicly ruled out, and have always said, I would never consider a pardon for Tina Peters,” Polis said.
A pardon would erase the conviction from her record. A commutation keeps the conviction but reduces the sentence.
The commutation by Polis on Friday is unprecedented.
A 9NEWS review of the 25 commutations granted by Polis during his eight years in office shows he has never granted that clemency to an inmate who was not remorseful for their actions and had taken responsibility for their crimes.
Polis told 9NEWS in March that Peters would need to show contrition for a successful clemency request.
Peters has shown no remorse and insists she is a political prisoner.
Polis read a portion of Peters’ statement acknowledging contrition in his interview with Clark.
“And there’s a statement from Tina Peters, which you can display, or I will read you, because you’re hearing it for the first time, ‘I made mistakes, and for those, I’m sorry. Five years ago, I misled the Secretary of State when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment. That was wrong. I have learned and grown during my time in prison, and going forward, I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I’ll avoid the mistakes of the past.’”
Yet on Friday, Polis told Kyle Clark granting clemency does not start with contrition.
“I don’t think that she’s remorseful for the opinions that she has or for belief in conspiracies,” Polis said. “Her beliefs are her beliefs. I vehemently disagree with much of what she has to say, certainly her conspiratorial beliefs. But then the case to prosecute that is in the public, it’s going on your show, it’s disputing her incorrect information and data. It’s not to lock somebody up because they believe something that is not only unpopular and incorrect, but also conspiratorial and potentially dangerous.”
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In March, all 66 Democratic state legislators signed a letter urging Polis to deny clemency to Peters.
“We would be remiss if we did not express strong concern about the impact of Ms. Peters’ crimes in fueling election conspiracy theories that undermine the integrity of our elections system as a whole. We fear that any clemency or other sentence reduction on your part will further embolden these conspiracies and those who propagate them. We urge you not to empower those who seek to undermine our elections and our Republic by providing them with a figurehead to rally around and near assurance that, when you tamper with our elections, you will escape justice,” the letter stated.
The Democratic lawmakers also voiced concern for the safety of county clerks.
“As a result of election denial conspiracy theories, the likes of which Ms. Peters continues to propagate, our election administrators face threats to their safety and attempted interference in their work,” the letter stated. “They have made their message clear and we reiterate it here: if you take this action, many will leave their roles and Colorado’s safe and secure elections will suffer greatly as a result.”
In December, Trump issued Peters a presidential pardon. Because Peters was convicted of state crimes and not federal crimes, that pardon was meaningless.
Trump has also used Peters’ imprisonment for retribution against the state of Colorado. He announced the withdrawal of a military facility and science lab from Colorado, denied disaster aid, vetoed a clean drinking water project and has threatened to pull other federal funding.
Trump has falsely claimed that Peters likely has cancer. Peters is a 70-year-old cancer survivor. She complained of a lingering cough in prison that her attorney said has improved recently.
“I think the president has been largely incoherent in his comments about this case,” Polis said. “Got her age wrong, doesn’t know what their criminal charges were, somehow believes that she did something in his election, she didn’t, it wasn’t even an election he was on the ballot.”
Polis had cited Peters’ age and health as possible mitigating factors in support of clemency.
9NEWS’ analysis of clemency records showed Polis has commuted the sentence of only one prisoner based on age and health: an 84-year-old man who was blind, deaf, suffering from dementia and confined to a wheelchair.
In March, Kyle Giddings, deputy director of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition, said he worried about the message a commutation for Peters would send to other inmates seeking clemency.
“There are so many folks who are currently incarcerated that are doing the work to turn their lives around,” Gidding said. “Tina Peters getting clemency and jumping the line in front of all these people … sets a precedent that I just can’t imagine.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
