The Grand Junction Sentinel reports that Griswold’s move to have Peters banned comes at the same time that Mesa County commissioners voted to have Tina Peters “Permanently” removed as the top election official. It also comes after Peters refused to comply with the Secretary of State’s Office’s elections order that would have set security protocols and accountability procedures on Peters’ return to her position. This included having someone with her any time she was near secure equipment and locations.

Peters’ response, according to Colorado Public Radio (CPR) was to claim her she was being asked to sign away her rights. “Please name one time in the history of the world in which the side demanding you ‘repudiate’ your beliefs, especially beliefs for transparency, in exchange for return of your rights, have been the good guys? As [I] said before—I will not back down.  Not now, not ever.” 

Was Peters referring to the terms of the order by Secretary Griswold that Peters does the bare minimum of her job to maintain the security of our elections?  Maybe it was how the Election Order:

• prohibits Peters from accessing the statewide voter registration system known as “SCORE” unless and until she receives training on how to use the system and submits a signed SCORE Acceptable Use Policy as required by Election Rule 2.17.2;
• directs Peters to maintain 24-hour/day, 7-day/week video surveillance of all voting equipment;

Maybe it’s the fact that Peters has to report her work, and thus be accountable for doing her job?

According to CPR, it’s probably the fact that one of the demands was that Peters “repudiate” a Facebook post she made: “We’ve got to get those machines so . . . they’re not able to do what they’re designed to do,” she wrote, along with other statements about how elections officials should rig machines to … not be rigged? Gotcha.

Peters reportedly showed up at the Mesa County commissioners’ vote to hurl accusations at Bantz and why both Peters and Knisely—under investigation for absolutely making election equipment less- or entirely non-secure—should remain in control of oversight. Peters’ main point was that Bantz was incompetent and didn’t know how to do the job. According to the Sentinel:

Peters now says she and Knisely had to train Bantz on how to do her job. Bantz has 16 years experience running elections and has completed the required state certification to be an elections supervisor, while Peters has not. She was required to complete elections training within two years of getting elected, but after three years on the job she still hasn’t, the Secretary of State’s Office says.

According to the Mesa County Commissioners, their vote to create a working elections commission was done in order to help secure the 2022 primaries and elections as they expect the courts to uphold Secretary Griswold’s lawsuit against Peters.

This move follows the pattern that Secretary of State Griswold has set for this serious investigation. Griswold first presented more of the initial, damning findings of her office’s investigation to a judge in late September, in order to have Peters banned from working the November 2021 election. That evidence included proof that Peters, along with her deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley, manipulated security protocols in order to allow an outside person access to elections equipment. They did this while also making sure to have security cameras turned off—something that screams guilt.

Along with this news, Colorado Republican Party Chairwoman Kristi Burton Brown tweeted:

“The 2020 election is over. It’s in the past & Joe Biden is the (very unpopular) president. If the Dems are asking if we have confidence in our elections, the answer is yes. We have complete confidence we will win this upcoming election. See you on the campaign trail!”

Of course, at the same time, two-thirds of Colorado’s GOP House members voted to “formally thanking state Rep. Ron Hanks and those who joined him at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.” Oh, and a majority of the Colorado House’s GOP voted to question whether or not President Joe Biden was actually elected, and “to urge the decertification of 2020 election results in an effort to reinstall former President Donald Trump; to support embattled Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters, an ally of election deniers who is under investigation for allegedly allowing a security breach in her elections division.”

So, like the rest of the GOP, Colorado’s Chairwoman Brown is full of … something that rhymes with “hit.”

You can read the new lawsuit from the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office here.