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July 29, 2022 09:29 AM UTC

How Would You Spend Tina Peters' Quarter Million?

  • 20 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

Defeated GOP Secretary of State candidate Tina Peters (R).

As the Grand Junction Sentinel’s Charles Ashby reports:

Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters paid the $255,912 needed to recount all votes in the June GOP primary for Colorado Secretary of State, a vote that had her coming in second place against the declared winner, Pamela Anderson.

As a result, elections officials in all 64 counties have until Aug. 4 to conduct their recounts, something that is expected to cause them to work the weekend to do so…

We can hardly imagine a more ingratiating burden for embattled Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters to inflict on her fellow county clerks than forcing them to spend this weekend at the office recounting an election that was in no way close instead of home with their families. But the law is the law, and if a candidate ponies up the prohibitively high cost of a recount within the specified period, which Peters did with help from Steve Bannon’s “War Room Posse,” it’s got to happen. Peters’ up-to-now partner in questioning the results of the June 28th primary, state Rep. Ron Hanks, appears to have been left high and dry.

Which doesn’t matter much now, because the recount is being set up to be declared a failure before it even begins. Peters knows (or should know) that she won’t be getting the hand recount she asked for:

The recount will be done with the same equipment used to count the June primary. Peters had asked for a hand count of all ballots, but state law and election rules dictate that existing machines be used in any recount. Those rules were put in place when Scott Gessler, a Republican who now is one of Peters’ attorneys, was secretary of state. [Pols emphasis]

When the results of this recount come back next week re-affirming Peters’ defeat, it is 100% certain that Peters will not accept that result either. If Peters never intends to accept the result of anything besides a hand recount, and knows that’s not the kind of recount she just plopped $250,000 down to have performed, it calls into question at a pretty basic level why she paid all that money, and why Bannon’s donors gave it to her.

And then you realize. There is no why. The whole purpose is to keep the uncertainty alive for just a little bit longer, during which Peters can continue to represent herself as a martyr instead of reckoning with the felony charges waiting for her in court. Which makes this, among other things, one of the most expensive denial parties in Colorado political history. Other than putting that $250,000 in a pile and literally lighting it on fire (above), it’s hard to imagine a more frivolous way to waste so much money.

With that, we’ll turn it over to readers: what would you spend Tina Peters’ $250,000 on? We’ll accept any submissions, better or worse, selfish to altruistic. It’s all the same to us since we, like Peters’ hapless donors wish they had said, don’t have any money to give you.

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20 thoughts on “How Would You Spend Tina Peters’ Quarter Million?”

  2. I’d divide it into two equal parts. One half would go to groups that maintain and build trails in Colorado, or protect key wildlife habitat & public lands.

    The other half would go to groups advocating for separation of church and state, and womens’ reproductive rights.

  3. Spend it on bolstering Clerk and Recorder offices around the state with extra cash and additional practice counting ballots.  Oh wait that's what she is doing with someone else's money.  You have to love how this steals attention away from the candidate who won and is the Republican nominee.

  4. I'd give it to Adam Frisch, the Democrat running in the 3rd CD (so far invisibly) against Boobert, with the provision that his introductory radio spots mention his business background plus water and more water, and that they run on stations in the 3rd CD that carry right-wing radio. The lion's share of the buy should be made direct on KNZZ, AM 1100, in Grand Junction.

  5. Serious question from a Mesa County Lurker. Why was the machine recount rule put in? Since it was put in by Gessler what was the advantage to the Rs?

    1. I don't know Gessler's reasoning, but:

      • the machines are certified accurate with test ballots matching real ballot layouts

      • they're faster and cheaper than a hand recount

      • they're more accurate than a hand recount. All ballots with clear intent are counted in software, and those that aren't clear are human-reviewed.

      • any programmatic  discrepancies should have been caught in the risk-limiting audit

  6. Who gives a rat's ass?

    It's her money to waste as she sees fit. It did belong to the MAGA morons who donated it to her cause, but those fools and their money soon went separate ways. Such is life.

    If she really wanted to do something nice, she would have invited a contingent of Q-Anon folk from Mesa County to travel to Mar-A-Lago with her for the recent private screening of 2,000 Mules. Or she could have provided them with an all-expense paid trip to Bedminster the Saudi golf tournament this week.

    Or she could spend it on a recount. 

  7. It's their money… I just wish that the clerks and secretary of state could have some fun with it. I'd keep teasing Tina in the lead! Numbers are woke as sos uses arabic to communicate! A smell of sulphur was reported! Then revel Tina Peters got the same number she lost by thanks for playing. 

  9. That money could house about 15 low income families for a year.

    (current market rate for 2 BR apartment in Denver is 1400/mo times 12, ~16,800 / yr. 250,0000 / 16800 = 14.8)

  10. Give it to Media Matters or Progress Now. Hopefully, they could run this BS so high up social media trend lines that every Dem in the country feels it necessary to contribute $5 and a 2-hour shift this fall to drive her and her kind out of politics.

    1. Expecting anything productive out of Media Matters or Progress Now is the funniest thing I've read so far today.

      But the suggestion, should Peters read it, would make her projectile vomit.

  11. The quarter million dollars could provide a guaranteed income of $24,000 to 10 families for a year.  Or probably about a quarter million meals through a food bank. Or pay for a campaign like Pueblo's “Get the Lead Out” effort for communities that have not completed the detection and removal of lead pipes.

    I'm just happy it will not be available for MAGA campaigns.

  13. Set up a foundation to fund childhood vaccination and name it after the most rabid anti-vaxxer in the Colorado GQP. (Yeah, I realizing picking just one could be problematic.)

    If that doesn't work, there's always hookers and blow.

  14. You all are listing what a philanthropic liberal would fund. Not a fair answer to this question. A fair answer is what would a Republican politician fund that was the most effective use of the money.

    I’d say it’s donate to the PAC supporting the Republican candidates in the 7 competitive Senate races.

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