An elections supervisor embraced conspiracy theories. Officials say she has become an insider threat
In April, employees in the office that runs elections in western Colorados Mesa County received an unusual calendar invitation for an after-hours work event, a gathering at a hotel in Grand Junction. Expectations are that all will be at the Doubletree by 5:30, said the invite sent by a deputy to Tina Peters, the countys chief elections official.
Speaking at the DoubleTree was Douglas Frank, a physics teacher and scientist who was rapidly becoming famous among election deniers for claiming to have discovered secret algorithms used to rig the 2020 contest against Donald Trump. Frank led the crowd in a rendition of The Star-Spangled Banner and spent the next 90 minutes alleging an elaborate conspiracy involving inflated voter rolls, fraudulent ballots and a sixth-order polynomial, video of the event shows. He was working for MyPillow chief executive Mike Lindell, he said, and their efforts could overturn President Bidens victory.
Being told to sit through a presentation of wild, debunked claims was a huge slap in the face, one Mesa County elections-division employee said of the previously unreported episode. We put so much time and effort into making sure that everythings done accurately, the employee told The Washington Post, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. Peters, the elected county clerk, had expressed sympathy for such theories in the past, the employee said.
Over the course of the past month, in a lawsuit filed by the states top elections official, Peters and her deputy have been accused of sneaking someone into the county elections offices to copy the hard drives of Dominion Voting Systems machines. Those copies later surfaced online and in the hands of election deniers. The local district attorney, state prosecutors and the FBI are investigating whether criminal charges are warranted.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/an-elections-supervisor-embraced-conspiracy-theories-officials-say-she-has-become-an-insider-threat/2021/09/26/ee60812e-1a17-11ec-a99a-5fea2b2da34b_story.html