What specific evidence did prosecutors present at Tina Peters’s 2024 trial to prove unauthorized access to voting machines?
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Executive summary
Prosecutors at Tina Peters’s 2024 trial relied on a mix of digital artifacts, witness testimony and a reconstructed timeline to show that Peters permitted an unauthorized person to enter Mesa County’s secure elections area, copy Dominion voting-system hard drives and cause confidential images and passwords to be posted online [1] [2]. The case centered less on whether the machines tallied votes correctly and more on demonstrable steps — access using another person’s security credentials, copying drives, and subsequent publication of sensitive files — that prosecutors said proved an intentional, unauthorised breach [3] [4].
1. The physical/digital items prosecutors presented: hard-drive copies and posted images
Prosecutors pointed to copies of Dominion system hard drives and “confidential digital images” that surfaced online after the May 2021 breach, arguing those files came from Mesa County equipment and reflected an unauthorized extraction of data [5] [1]. News reports say the breach produced images of Dominion property and passwords that were later published on a right‑wing blog, a fact prosecutors used to link the physical copying of drives to public dissemination of sensitive material [2] [5].
2. Evidence of unauthorized entry: misuse of a security badge and access logs
A central piece of the government’s case was that an unauthorized person entered the county’s secure elections area using another employee’s security badge, a badge belonging to Gerald Wood, and that Peters had allowed or arranged that access during events such as a software update — effectively bypassing required controls [6] [3]. Colorado reporting describes how prosecutors reconstructed who used the badge and when, tying that misuse to the timeframe in which drives were copied [6] [3].
3. Witness testimony that tied Peters to the plan and cover‑up
Key witnesses testified that Peters met with election‑conspiracy figures in early 2021 and “hatched a plan” to bring an unauthorized observer to a Dominion software update so drives could be copied, and that Peters later took steps prosecutors say amounted to a conspiracy to cover up the breach after the data was posted online [3] [1]. Gerald Wood — whose identity was used to gain access — was identified as a “key witness” in reports that places him at the center of the access claim [6].
4. Forensic findings and broader digital trail used by prosecutors
Local prosecutors relied on forensic assessments and a digital trail indicating files were created or copied without authorization, and on the sequence of events showing images and passwords linked back to the Mesa County system; reporting describes prosecutors arguing that the unauthorized copying and publication were traceable and deliberate rather than incidental [5] [2]. State coverage also detailed prosecutors’ timeline of meetings between Peters and outside actors, used to explain motive and opportunity [3].
5. How the defense responded and what the court excluded or rejected
Peters’s team sought to shift focus to alleged problems with Dominion machines and to challenge credibility, and at times attempted to introduce material about Dominion and other third parties, but judges repeatedly limited such evidence as irrelevant to the statutory offenses of unauthorized access and identity misuse — framing the trial on the act of breaching secure systems rather than on whether the machines were vulnerable [7] [1]. Peters and supporters continued to publicly assert innocence and broader conspiracies, which prosecutors and the sentencing judge rejected as dishonest or immaterial to the access charges [8].
6. Verdict, sentence and prosecutorial portrayal of the evidence
A jury convicted Peters on multiple counts tied to engaging in a security breach and related conspiracies, and sentencing emphasized the “well‑documented” nature of the lies and the seriousness of the crimes; reporting summarizes prosecutors’ portrayal of a deliberate, coordinated scheme to grant unauthorized access, copy drives and publish sensitive material [2] [8]. Colorado courts and prosecutors treated the evidence as sufficient to prove unauthorized access even as the national conversation remained focused on broader election‑fraud claims [2] [4].
7. Reporting limits and what the sources do not establish
Public reporting documents the hard drives’ copies, the published images and passwords, the badge misuse, witness statements and prosecutors’ timeline, but the sources provided do not supply the trial exhibits themselves, raw forensic reports or complete transcripts; those primary documents would be necessary to independently evaluate chain‑of‑custody details, forensic methodology and defense challenges to provenance beyond the summaries in news coverage [5] [6].