Rural Colorado county officials pled with community members to pass along a message to their missing-in-action county clerk who is being investigated for an election security breach: “Come home.”
Mesa County commissioners made their plea Tuesday during a meeting attended by supporters of Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who has not made any local appearances since Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold opened an investigation into the county elections office in early August. A second investigation by the FBI and Mesa County district attorney is also ongoing for possible criminal actions.
Peters is still being paid a salary.
The commissioners’ meeting lasted more than two hours as they debunked false election claims and defended their selection of former Secretary of State Wayne Williams to run the county’s elections while Peters is out, the Grand Junction Sentinel reported.
Griswold said images of election management software used by the county’s elections equipment were obtained by conspiracy theorists and posted on far-right blogs. Griswold’s office also said it believes one of the images was taken on May 23 from a secure room where the equipment was stored and accessed by Peters, who allowed a non-employee into the office.