Matt Cohen, Senior Reporter

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) said last week that he’s commuting the sentence of Tina Peters — the former election official convicted for her role in a voting system breach — effectively making her eligible for parole in just a few weeks. Colorado lawmakers, elected officials, and election workers condemned Polis’ move, with Secretary of State Jena Griswold (D) calling the move “a gross injustice to our elections, election workers and democracy with far-reaching consequences.”

But election deniers and MAGA faithful — for whom Peters had become a cause célèbre — are cheering the decision. In fact, some think Polis didn’t go far enough, and want retribution against the elected officials who worked to convict Peters.

• One influential Trump ally called for a federal investigation into Griswold over the issue. “[Griswold] admits she helped imprison Tina Peters for believing and attempting to prove Democrats rig and steal elections,” conservative lawyer Mike Davis said. “It’s time for the Trump Justice Department to open a criminal probe.”
  
  
• Far-right attorney and Trump ally Peter Ticktin, who led Peters’ legal team, praised Polis. “Tina Peters is going to be out of prison within a matter of weeks,” Ticktin said on Steve Bannon’s podcast. “Governor Polis did the right thing, thank God. He had so much pressure from the left to not do this.” (Ticktin thought he was breaking the news of Peters’ commutation on the podcast, only to be informed outlets already widely reported it).
  
  
• “What a nightmare [Tina Peters] has endured,” the anti-voting group True the Vote posted on social media. “Thank God it’s coming to an end.”
  
  
• “The thought that a Polis-appointed Parole Board could now treat Tina Peters as a felon—and possibly impose conditions that block her free speech—is concerning,” wrote Wayne Willott, a popular QAnon figure who goes by the online pseudonym Juan O. Savin (and who some people think is actually the late John F. Kennedy Jr. — seriously).
  
  
• “I’ll say what Tina Peters can’t say in a written statement: Screw the corrupt state of Colorado and your rigged, all-mail elections,” anti-voting activist Seth Keshel wrote.
  
  

• Prominent right-wing figures are hosting a “telethon” to help Peters “build her life after prison” when she is expected to be released next month.

The Election Integrity Network (EIN) — the anti-voting group led by Cleta Mitchell, the far-right lawyer who played a key role in Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the 2020 election — released a sweeping new handbook last week that urges lawmakers and election officials to severely restrict mail-in voting, eliminate same-day voter registration, impose rigorous ID requirements, conduct mass voter challenges and empower officials to deny and delay certification.

These are long-standing goals of EIN, but the handbook marks a dangerous escalation from one of the most influential election denial operations in right-wing politics.

• The handbook’s proposals are rooted in the same distrust of elections and conspiracy-laden claims about fraud, noncitizen voting and corrupt election officials that have animated the GOP’s anti-voting push since 2020.
  
  
• One of the most alarming proposals would redefine election certification — the formal step where officials sign off on election results — as a discretionary act. Translation: Officials could claim they have the power to refuse or delay certification if they say they have unresolved concerns.
  
  
• The handbook also calls for limiting early voting to no longer than seven days, restoring Election Day as the main voting period, and repealing no-excuse absentee voting. All are policies that could disenfranchise large numbers of voters.
  
  
• “What has become clear is that those who oppose election integrity really want corruption of our elections,” Mitchell wrote in a letter accompanying the handbook. “Ours is a binary choice when it comes to election policy: choose either election integrity vs. corrupt, inaccurate, and insecure elections.”

• Valentina Gomez, the far-right failed Texas congressional candidate who baselessly cried election fraud when she lost her primary in March, is crashing out after being banned from entering the UK for being too racist. She was trying to come over to attend a far-right rally organized by anti-immigration activist Tommy Robinson.
  
  

• Right-wing commentator James O’Keefe — who founded, then was subsequently ousted from, Project Veritas — is not happy the White House denied press credentials for one of his correspondents.