On Thursday, Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced that Peters submitted $255,912, per state statute, to secure a recount of the June election, which Peters lost to former Jefferson County Clerk Pam Anderson. Anderson received 43.06 percent of the vote to Peters’ 28.86 percent, and Mike O’Donnell, director of a nonprofit lender, took 28.08 percent, according to official election results. Election experts and people across the country watched the race closely after Peters, the Mesa County clerk accused of election violations, was accused of making software images of the voting system. The passwords were later posted online by a QAnon conspiracy theory leader. Peters then sued Griswold to remove her from overseeing the 2021 and 2022 elections. “Recounts will be conducted according to law and will be completed by August 4,” Griswold said Thursday. Also getting a recount is Lynda Zamora Wilson, who lost the state Senate District 9 race in Colorado Springs. On Friday night, Peters, in a press release, said the recount in El Paso County was an “absolute disaster.” “Today, the machine count ordered by Secretary of State Jena Griswold failed the Logic and Accuracy Test (LAT), with Dominion employees present, in spectacular fashion with an error rate of over 50% of the 4,000+ ballots tested. said the release. “These voting machines are unacceptable for use in Colorado elections.” El Paso County, under Clerk and Recorder Chuck Broerman, started the LAT at 8 a.m. Friday, according to Peters. Griswold “failed to provide reasonable advance notice of the LAT to the Tina Peters Campaign, thereby denying them their right to have … appointed observers present during the trial,” the release said. “Thankfully, due to public outcry and citizen concerns, there were enough witnesses to witness the utter humiliation of the LAT failure and the over 50% error rate that the LAT revealed.” The El Paso County election team that administered the test “informed participants that it would take at least 26 additional hours to reconcile these disastrous results,” according to Peters. The secretary of state’s office and the El Paso County Clerk could not be reached for comment Friday night.
