Former Colorado election official Tina Peters found guilty of tampering with voting machines

A former county election official was found guilty by a Colorado jury on Monday of allowing a supposed computer expert to copy highly sensitive voter data from her office in 2020 in an effort to prove Donald Trump's false claims that the election was stolen.

Tina Peters, the former Mesa County clerk, was convicted of tampering with voting machines under her control to try and make it seem like they had been used to rig against Trump in the 2020 election, The Washington Post reported.

Peters was found guilty on seven of 10 counts, including several charges of attempting to influence a public servant and conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation.

The jury in Grand Junction took nearly five hours to determine that Peters was involved in trying to breach a machine manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems by helping an outsider gain unauthorized access to the machine in May 2021. The stolen data was later presented publicly at a conspiratorial event hosted by election denier, Mike Lindell, a Trump ally and CEO of MyPillow, The New York Times reported.

Peters' outside computer expert was a former pro surfer, Conon Hayes. According to testimony at the trial, Peters identified Hayes as a different person — a county technology expert named Gerald Woods who Peters had recently hired.

After Hayes gained access to the voting machines, he also gained access to county passwords and sensitive data about Dominion’s software.

Peters will be sentenced Oct. 3 and could potentially face prison time.