November 05, 2021 10:06 AM UTC

ICYMI: Tina Peters is Some Sort of Wizard

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• by: Colorado Pols

We couldn’t let this week come to a close without making sure to address an incredible post-election story from Charles Ashby of The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. As Ashby reports, with an appropriate amount of skepticism, “embattled” Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters apparently possesses some sort of magical powers bestowed on her by Zeus himself (or, at the very least, “MyPillow Guy” Mike Lindell).

As you may recall, Peters and her deputy, Belinda Knisely, were prohibited from having any involvement in the 2021 election in Mesa County on account of the fact that they are being investigated by numerous local, state, and federal agencies (including the Mesa County District Attorney and the FBI) for allegedly breaking into their own secure election facilities in order to try to prove that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election from Donald Trump.

Peters is very salty about not being allowed to interfere in another election. She has voiced her anger in bizarre press conferences and as part of a mob of weirdos who regularly scream at the Mesa County Commissioners. On Wednesday, Peters made a new claim about her prowess in overseeing elections. As Ashby reports for the Sentinel:

In an email sent to all county workers early Wednesday, Peters wrote that one of her election managers, who currently is on paid administrative leave while investigations are underway for possible criminal wrongdoing by Peters and some members of her staff, would have posted the final results of the fall election almost immediately after the polls closed. [Pols emphasis]

In response to the email sent by Mesa County Treasurer Sheila Reiner, who along with former Secretary of State Wayne Williams have been tapped to oversee the fall election instead of Peters, the clerk claimed that one of her election managers, Sandra Brown, would have done a better job.

“Tabulation expert, and election manager, Sandra Brown would have had the final election results at 7:01 p.m., not 2:40 a.m. as we have been the first county of 64 counties to have our election results out in the last 4 elections before this one,” Peters wrote in an email response to Reiner and the entire county staff.

Is being a “tabulation expert” a different thing than being good at counting?

Anyway, Ashby does some quick fact-checking on Peters’s claims:

For Brown — or Peters — to have “final” results at 7:01 p.m. would have required election judges to pick up all remaining ballots at the various drop boxes located around the county at 7 p.m., transport them to the Elections Division by two election judges, have those judges verify signatures on the ballot envelops, tabulate them and then report results to the Secretary of State’s Office.

All that would have to be done in a single minute. [Pols emphasis]

This isn’t the only problem with Peters’s claim. Republican Sheila Reiner, the former Mesa County Clerk and Recorder who was tapped (along with former Republican Secretary of State Wayne Williams) to oversee Mesa County’s 2021 election process, also reminded Ashby that “final” election results aren’t actually possible to achieve on Election Night because officials still must tabulate ballots sent by overseas and military voters, among other things. Check out Ashby’s story for a colorful quote from Williams on the impossibility of any of this happening at 7:01 pm regardless.

But perhaps our favorite part of this story comes near the end:

[Peters] did appear at the clerk’s office Tuesday evening and helped herself to dinner that was meant for election workers, claiming that she paid for it, sources inside the clerk’s office said.

You’d think that someone with Peters’s magical powers could have at least conjured up something to eat.