An appeals court has ordered the re-sentencing of a woman convicted of lying to Colorado state officials about a tech specialist she brought in to observe changes to election software.

The Colorado Court of Appeals upheld her conviction and said she is ineligible for a pardon by President Donald Trump. However, it ruled that she was improperly sentenced and sent the case back to state court for resentencing.

“Here, the trial court’s comments about Peters’s belief in the existence of 2020 election fraud went beyond relevant considerations for her sentencing,” the court’s April 2 opinion says.

“Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud; it was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.”

In 2021, Mesa County Clerk and Recorder Tina Peters told her staff that Gerald Wood was a new government administrative assistant. But Wood was not a government worker; he was part of a team of private citizens concerned about election fraud.

Peters then obtained security credentials for him to witness the state’s upcoming election software update, which occurred about every other year.

An official from the Secretary of State’s election office had already informed counties across Colorado that only personnel from Dominion Voting Systems, the secretary of state’s office, and county election staff could attend the update procedure.

The email requested a list of attendees from each county, and stated that if others were present, the update would not be performed.

Peters then passed Wood’s credentials to software technician Conan Hayes, who posed as Wood to witness the update in his place. Hayes also made a copy of the election software server before and after the update.

Data from those copies, including passwords for election software, were later posted on the internet, prompting an investigation.

In August 2024, a jury convicted Peters of multiple charges, including “three counts of attempt to influence a public servant and one count each of conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation, violation of duty, [and] first degree official misconduct.”

Peters, now aged 70, was sentenced to nine years.

The appeals court said the length of the sentence was influenced by her insistence that fraud occurred in the 2020 election; this was a violation of her First Amendment rights, the court found. To bolster their ruling, they cited statements by Mesa County Judge Matthew Barrett during her sentencing.

“There are many things in my mind that are crystal clear about this case. You are no hero,” he said.

“You abused your position and you’re a charlatan who used, and is still using, your prior position in office to [peddle] a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again. In your world, it’s all about you.”

Although she will now be resentenced, the appeals court denied her request for a different judge.

Trump pardoned her in December 2025, but the appeals court ruled that pardon was null since she was convicted under state law, meaning a pardon from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis is required.

Her attorneys had argued that her conviction should be overturned because she was doing her duty under federal law—to “retain and preserve” election records—which they said overrules any state laws she may have broken.

The appeals court rejected that argument, since her attorneys were unable to cite a case that extended immunity to a state worker acting under a federal statute.

It also rejected the argument that Peters did not act to deceive state officials “with intent to obtain a benefit” for herself or another, as required to charge her with misconduct under the law.

The court said she intended to benefit those involved in her scheme, and herself, “to substantiate a theory of election fraud.” It also brushed aside her objections that the trial court excluded some evidence, and limited her attorneys’ ability to cross-examine witnesses.

Those factors were relevant to her motives for deceiving the state officials, but did not demonstrate that she had a legal right to do so, the court said.