New arrest warrant issued for election-denying Colorado clerk

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A new arrest warrant was issued Thursday for Colorado’s election-denying clerk, less than a week after the embattled official convinced a judge not to send her back to jail for improperly traveling out of state while awaiting trial on felony charges.

The warrant was issued for Tina Peters’ arrest after authorities say she violated another term of her $25,000 bail - a prohibition on contacting workers at the Mesa County elections office, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported.

Peters is under indictment in a break-in of the county’s election system to search for evidence of former President Donald Trump’s election conspiracy theories. A judge barred Peters from overseeing last year’s local elections or this year’s.

Peters lost her bid for the Republican Party nomination for Colorado Secretary of State last month. After the Secretary of State’s office told her she was not entitled to a hand recount under the law, Peters contacted dozens of county election offices asking them to do their own. One of those, authorities said, was Mesa County’s in violation of her release.

Last week, Peters’ attorneys convinced a judge not to send her back to jail for traveling to Nevada to speak to a conference of conservative sheriffs - a violation of the terms of her release, which prohibited her from leaving the state without approval. But her attorneys said they were to blame for the trip because they didn’t tell her not to travel.