Tina Peters, the imprisoned Republican former clerk of Mesa County, Colorado, could soon be granted clemency by Colorado Democratic Gov. Jared Polis.
ABC News reported Thursday comments by Peters’ attorney Peter Ticktin who said, “I’m expecting her to get the commutation today or tomorrow,” adding, “I don’t think it’s going to even go into next week.”
Peters was convicted of seven charges in October 2024 stemming from her time working as Mesa County clerk during the 2020 election.
They included conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, attempting to influence a public servant, and first-degree official misconduct.
Her indictment came in 2022, stating she and Deputy Clerk Belinda Knisley knowingly allowed an individual claiming to be an IT consultant to have access to voting machines.
The IT “consultant” was actually a conservative political operative affiliated with Mike Lindell, the founder of the MyPillow company and a well-known supporter of President Donald Trump.
At her sentencing, as The Associated Press reported, Peters maintained that her actions were driven only by a desire to protect voter integrity.
“I’ve never done anything with malice to break the law. I’ve only wanted to serve the people of Mesa County,” she said, according to the AP.
Peters, now 70, was sentenced to nine years in prison.
For many observers, the length of that sentence — raising the potential that Peters could die behind bars — was proof that it was her politics more than her actions that were important.
In a commentary published by The Denver Post in March 2025, Mike Davis, an attorney with the judicial watchdog group Article III project, outlined the case for clemency for Peters. He also effectively called Peters a political prisoner, arguing the length of her sentence had more to do with politics than the criminal charges she was convicted on.
“Peters, like many Americans, believes that the 2020 election was stolen,” Davis wrote. “Her belief is not a crime. Her expression of it is not a crime. In fact, it’s her constitutional right. That view should have had no impact on her sentence.”
In a post published to the social media platform X on Tuesday, Polis compared Peters’ case to the case of Democratic former Colorado state Sen. Sonya Jaquez Lewis, who was convicted in January of attempting to influence a public servant and three counts of forgery in relation to an ethics investigation against her.
She was sentenced Friday to only two years of probation and 150 hours of community service and fined $3,000, according to CBS News.
Last week, former State Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis was sentenced to probation and community service after being convicted of four felonies including Attempt to Influence a Public Official. She made a horrible mistake, and she was wrong. I hope she learns from this and can rebuild…
— Jared Polis (@jaredpolis) March 4, 2026
“Justice in Colorado and America needs to be applied evenly, you never know when you might need to depend on the rule of law,” Polis wrote.
“This is the context I am using as I consider cases like this that have sentencing disparities.”
Peters’ story is all the more outrageous — and her status as a political prisoner even more indisputable — when considering cases like 41-year-old Robert Anzulewicz. The Colorado resident attempted to vote multiple times in the Centennial State in 2022, only to be given 20 days in jail and probation after being convicted of voter fraud, according to The Denver Post.
President Donald Trump has publicly given support to her.
He wrote on social media platform Truth Social in August, “FREE TINA PETERS, a brave and innocent Patriot who has been tortured by Crooked Colorado politicians, including the big Mail-In Ballot supporting the governor of the State. Let Tina Peters out of jail, RIGHT NOW.”
If Peters’ attorney is correct, that might be coming to pass.
Polis being the one to make the call can’t go unnoticed for its irony. If even a Democrat can see the problem, the problem is pretty clear.
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