What specific evidence was presented at Tina Peters' 2024 trial in Mesa County?
Executive summary
The prosecution’s case at Tina Peters’ 2024 Mesa County trial centered on a chain of actions and communications that prosecutors said enabled an unauthorized person to access county voting machines and to copy their hard drives; key evidence included surveillance footage and logs, testimony about cameras being turned off, records of disposable-phone and encrypted-message practices, a secret recording played for jurors, and witness accounts tying Peters to an impersonation scheme [1] [2] [3] [4]. Jurors found Peters guilty on seven of ten counts after the eight-day trial in Grand Junction, where prosecutors framed the case as intentional deception of county staff and misuse of clerk authority [5] [6].
1. Prosecution’s central physical and digital evidence
Prosecutors introduced evidence they said showed a deliberate effort to conceal who entered the secure elections room: surveillance-camera footage and testimony that cameras were turned off on May 17, 2021, and related logs were emphasized as proof of a break from protocol [1] [2]. The state also highlighted the timing and content of communications—non-county email use and instructions to staff to buy disposable “burner” phones with cash and use the encrypted app Signal—which prosecutors argued demonstrated a plan to evade normal county recordkeeping and oversight [2] [1].
2. The impersonation and identity-theft allegations presented to jurors
A core factual allegation offered at trial was that Peters permitted Conan Hayes, described in reporting as an outsider, to enter the secured machines room under the identity of Gerald Wood, a county contractor or engineer, which the prosecution cast as criminal impersonation and identity theft [4] [7]. Prosecutors told jurors they would demonstrate Peters “intentionally took the identity of another person,” and the testimony sought to connect that impersonation to the unauthorized copying of voting-machine hard drives [7] [8].
3. Recordings, witnesses, and technical walkthroughs
Reporters covered how the prosecution played a secret audio recording of a fateful meeting for jurors and called witnesses who walked the jury through the county’s vote-counting system and the sequence of events leading to the copying of machines’ hard drives [3] [8]. Election officials including the director of elections were heard on tape explaining that machines were not connected to the internet, which the prosecution used to contextualize why copying hard drives mattered to the chain of custody and system security [3] [8].
4. Documentary evidence and outside actors
The state introduced documentary and testimonial evidence about an April 23, 2021 meeting with out-of-state co-conspirators and about confidential information later released at an “elections symposium,” which prosecutors used to show a pattern of coordination beyond Mesa County [1] [8]. Reports also note that copies of hard drives and materials allegedly taken from machines were linked to outside figures and events promoted by national election deniers, evidence the prosecution cited to show motive and distribution beyond a local curiosity [8] [9].
5. Defense strategy, excluded lines of argument, and judicial limits
Defense attorneys argued Peters acted within her authority as clerk and sought to present alternative explanations; court rulings, however, limited some defense evidence—reporting notes the judge precluded certain discussions (for example about a government affiliation of one participant) from reaching the jury—and Peters complained at sentencing that the jury wasn’t allowed to hear other evidence she wanted offered [10] [6]. Media coverage records that the defense emphasized intent to “serve the people” and disputed that fraud had been uncovered, while prosecutors insisted the record showed intentional deception of public servants [11] [6].
6. What the record shows — and what reporting does not fully disclose
Public reporting from multiple outlets documents the specific categories of evidence presented—camera logs and footage, the Signal and burner-phone instructions, the secret recording, testimony about impersonation and hard-drive copying, and witnesses who explained the machines and chain-of-custody issues [2] [3] [4] [8]. Reporting also makes clear that some defense evidence was excluded and that Peters disputed the completeness of what jurors heard, but available sources do not publish every exhibit or the full transcript of testimony, so a line-by-line inventory of trial exhibits beyond the cited categories is not available in these accounts [10] [6].