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Tina Peters, one of the few election deniers to actually face consequences for criminal conduct related to the 2020 election, will be a free woman in less than two weeks’ time. Rather than receiving leniency from a fellow election-denying MAGA leader, Peters’ freedom will be thanks to a Democratic politician who should know better, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. Last week, Polis tried to quietly announce that he had commuted her nine-year prison sentence, but the news immediately caught fire. Polis is being eviscerated for his decision, which was made after years of pressure from President Donald Trump. Worse yet, Polis has singlehandedly set a dangerous precedent for other states attempting to stave off a president unafraid to bully his perceived opponents into oblivion. Plus, it sends the signal that there will be few consequences for election officials who abuse their power to support Trump’s election denialism when the United States is just six months away from a consequential midterm election cycle.

Peters is the former county clerk and recorder of Mesa County, a bright-red pocket of Colorado, and in 2024 she was convicted of four felonies after a Colorado jury found her guilty of allowing an unauthorized computer expert—who turned out to be an associate of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell—to gain access to her county’s election software. She was sentenced to nine years in prison, but after Polis’ commutation, Peters is expected to be released on June 1, having served less than two years behind bars for her crimes.

Polis had been weighing whether to commute Peters’ sentence for some time now, and was waiting to see how an appeals court would handle the case. When a panel of three judges, each appointed to the bench by Trump during his first term, ruled in April that Peters’ sentence was overly severe and that the 2024 trial court judge had improperly violated her free speech rights, Polis had his opening. Even after local Colorado officials tried to persuade Polis to keep Peters behind bars, including the Republican county district attorney who prosecuted her, the governor decided to go his own way. When asked to explain why he chose to commute Peters’ prison sentence, he told CNN that though he believed she held strange beliefs, “We don’t punish people in this country for having strange beliefs,” then argued that “the place to resolve those differences is by debate, by discourse, by arguing with her, with by disputing her, not for keeping her behind bars simply because of what she believes or says.”

Contrary to what Polis implied, a jury did not choose to convict Peters because of her words. They did so because of her actions, which included attempting to influence a public servant, conspiracy to commit criminal impersonation,........

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