Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters pleads not guilty to charges related to a 2020 election security breach

MESA COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) -- Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters pleaded not guilty in court Wednesday to charges related to a security breach of her office's election equipment in 2020.

Peters is accused of allowing an unauthorized person to make copies of voting machine hard drives. Information from those machines and their passwords ended up on election conspiracy theory websites.

She's charged with ten counts, seven of which are felonies.

Despite now longer overseeing elections in Mesa County, she's still collecting a salary.

In August, Mesa County deputy clerk Belinda Knisley pleaded guilty and was immediately sentenced to two years of probation as part of a deal that also requires her to testify against her co-defendants, including Tina Peters.

According to our news partners in Denver, Knisley pleaded guilty to charges of trespassing, official misconduct, and violation of duty, all misdemeanors.

Peters' trial is set for March 2023, it's expected to last about a week.