A Colorado grand jury indicted a county election clerk and her deputy for their involvement in a voting machine security breach, the Wall Street Journal reports. The charges against Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, who is running for Colorado secretary of state, include attempting to influence a public servant, criminal impersonation, first-degree official misconduct, identity theft, violation of duty and failing to comply with the secretary of state. The incident that gave rise to the charges occurred when Peters allegedly “devised and executed a deceptive scheme which was designed to influence public servants, breach security protocols, exceed permissible access to voting equipment and set in motion the eventual disruption of confidential information to unauthorized people.”
Last summer, images of Mesa County's Dominion Voting Systems machines and passwords were released by conspiracy theorists after false claims by former President Trump and others that machines were fueling election fraud. Audits of paper ballots have affirmed the counts of Dominion machines and the company has filed suit against several of Trump's supporters and lawyers as well as conservative media outlets. Peters said the accusations were “politically motivated.”