Tina Peters has not accepted California county elections job

Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters did not accept a position with a California county’s elections office, she said in a statement Tuesday. 

Peters, a prominent election denier who was convicted for her role in a breach of her office’s election system, was rumored to be up for a job with the Shasta County Elections Office in Northern California. Shasta County Clerk Clint Curtis told a conservative radio host that he intended to hire her as the new assistant registrar of voters, The New York Times reported. 

Any reports that say she accepted a position with Shasta County are not accurate, and she has not accepted any position with the county, Peters said.

“There have been discussions about ways I might assist with election integrity and ballot-authenticity efforts, but no formal role has been accepted,” Peters said in a statement. “This has never been about just one county. My concern is for all 3,144 counties in America and whether every citizen can trust that our elections are free, fair, and transparent.”

A Mesa County jury convicted Peters on multiple felony counts, including three counts of attempting to influence a public servant. During her 2024 trial, Peters, a Republican and staunch supporter of President Donald Trump, spread conspiracy theories about voting machines, as she had previously done after the 2020 presidential election.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis commuted Peters’ prison sentence, and the Colorado Department of Corrections released her on June 1. Nothing in her parole plan prevents her from accepting a job in elections, according to The Colorado Sun. 

Since her release from prison, Peters has doubled down on her so-called election integrity advocacy work and unsubstantiated claims that compromised voting machines allow fraud in elections. 

“My advocacy is focused on ending reliance on electronic election processes and voting-machine systems that cannot be fully trusted, verified, or secured from foreign components, outside access, or outside influence,” Peters said. “America must end the use of unverified mail-in ballots and return to election practices that are transparent, auditable, and worthy of public confidence.”

Voting systems are forbidden from being connected to the internet in Colorado. Background-checked secretary of state staff are responsible for installing voting software onto voting system computers throughout the state. Other safeguards, such as risk-limiting audits, ensure the accuracy of election results and voting machines in Colorado.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that mail-in voting is susceptible to widespread fraud. There is no evidence for that, and mail ballot fraud is extremely rare. Colorado’s post-election audits regularly confirm that ballots are counted accurately.

Claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election have been debunked by elections officials, experts, media investigations, law enforcement, the courts and Trump’s own campaign and administration officials.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, decried the possibility of Peters working in elections in California and said he would direct the state corrections department to block any transfer of her parole to the state. He then celebrated reports that she declined a job offer. California’s two U.S. senators wrote to California’s secretary of state raising concerns about reports that Shasta County sought to hire Peters. 

Peter Ticktin, Peters’ attorney, said in a statement that Newsom’s comments go against the privileges and immunities clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.   

Shasta County officials voted to censure Curtis for remarks made to employees and for working on his campaign while on the job at the county. The county also asked the state to investigate Curtis after he certified the primary election and then made unverified claims about the election and his staff.