Immediately following the November 3, 2020 presidential election, Russ Ramsland, founding member of Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG), experts in cybersecurity, open source investigation, and penetration testing of networks and his team reviewed the election results.
We covered Ramsland’s conclusions in this previous Substack: Stolen 2020 Election Proof Deja vu, Pt 1: Dr. Jerome Corsi’s Explosive Interview with Russ Ramsland on 11/24/20 Reprised
This excerpt is extremely timely considering the recent events concerning Tina Peters.
Ramsland:
Most SOS (Secretary of State) offices fail to really understand their own system. They fail to understand the extent and the vulnerabilities with their system, and so they grant waivers to state law and the voting code to various counties or election companies. In some cases, it’s kind of hard to tell whether they simply fail to grasp it or they’re really more interested in being complicit.
In the case of deep blue Colorado, Democrat Secretary of State Jena Griswold actually understood the system, and what would happen if the state’s electronic voting system were to be proven to be capable of swinging an election. When Mesa County clerk Tina Peters sounded the alarms regarding the 2020 stolen election, Griswold, instead of honestly investigating Peter’s allegations, along with Democrat Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, relentlessly persecuted Peters, resulting in a prison sentence of 9 years.
Mike Davis, FoxNews.com, “MIKE DAVIS: Colorado governor delivers justice to Tina Peters,” May 16, 2026:
Seventy-year-old Tina Peters, a nonviolent former county clerk, has been rotting in a Colorado prison, serving an outrageous nine-year sentence. Most leftists delighted in Peters’ suffering, branding her, among other things, an “insurrectionist.” One Democrat, however, saw this for the egregious wrong that it was and stopped it: Colorado Gov. Jared Polis. Anyone who believes in the rule of law, regardless of political party, should thank him profusely for his courageous grant of clemency to Peters.
Peters believed, as did millions of Americans, that the 2020 election was rigged against President Donald Trump. As Mesa County clerk, Peters sought to prove that there were flaws in the electronic voting system under which the election had occurred. She provided secure information in the form of source code to an outside adviser as part of her efforts to demonstrate that the system was vulnerable and that election fraud had transpired. This conduct occurred after the election, and not one vote changed as a result. Peters never tried to alter any votes in any election.
Republican-in-name-only Mesa County District Attorney Dan Rubenstein, Democrat Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Democrat Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser went after Peters with a vengeance. She faced a slew of felony charges and up to 18 years in prison — in effect a life sentence for someone her age — for her nonviolent conduct. A jury found her guilty on some charges but acquitted her of identity theft. The prosecution argued that Peters had stolen the identification badge of one of her employees; Peters, by contrast, alleged that the employee had been in on the plan. The jury rejected the prosecution’s allegation, meaning that Peters is not an identity thief. Then the real injustice began.
Unfortunately for Peters, Barrett (21st Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett) presided over her trial. At sentencing, Barrett threw the book at her, sentencing her to nine years in prison. Nine years dwarfs the sentences that individuals who cast illegal votes receive. In those cases, illegal voters are canceling out the votes of lawful voters. Worse than the unconscionable length of the sentence for someone with no criminal history was Barrett’s reasoning. He harped on Peters’ statements about election fraud, branding her a "charlatan." All of those statements were protected by the First Amendment. In other words, Barrett was punishing Peters for constitutionally protected speech. Even worse, Barrett made Peters serve part of her sentence in a county jail rather than immediately sending her to state prison. This vindictive act decreased the amount of good-time credit and prison services for which Peters would be eligible.
Peters was convicted of four felonies and three misdemeanors for official misconduct, failing to comply with election rules, and related offenses. Griswold falsely stated in a 2022 press release that “voting equipment was compromised and election rules violated.”
Critically, one of the specific charges in Peters’ indictment included that “passwords had been published on the internet” and that “the public dissemination of this sensitive information constituted an unauthorized data breach.”
What Griswold Then Did Herself
An independent investigation conducted by the Baird Quinn law firm determined that Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and her office violated state security protocols that allowed the disclosure of election equipment passwords. The BIOS passwords to election equipment in 34 counties were posted online on June 21, 2024, but not discovered by the state until October.
Griswold also told 9News that she became aware of the password leak on October 24 but did not immediately inform county clerks about it — only doing so after the Colorado GOP publicized the breach.
The Direct Legal Parallel
Former Colorado Attorney General and Republican George Brauchler made the direct legal parallel explicit: “The allegations in Peters’ indictment include that ‘passwords had been published on the internet’ and ‘the public dissemination of this sensitive information constituted an unauthorized data breach.’ Many months ago, Griswold’s office published passwords related to our voting system to the internet for the planet earth to access.” He demanded independent prosecutors be appointed to investigate Griswold, using the Peters case as the legal model.
Brauchler further noted that during a media interview, Griswold revealed her office was investigating itself — no outside agency was invited in — and that she had not decided if she would ever tell the public about the breach until the GOP discovered and publicized it.
The Scale of Griswold’s Breach
Voting systems in 34 of Colorado’s 64 counties were impacted. The passwords were reset by the end of business on October 31, after which Griswold said “elections are secure.” Colorado Governor Jared Polis called for an outside investigation into the incident.
The Investigation’s Findings
The third-party investigation found that failures by Secretary of State Griswold and her office resulted in the scandal. The passwords were “mistakenly, unknowingly and unintentionally” posted online. The investigation made seven recommendations to avoid future disclosure of confidential information, including storing all passwords in a digital safe rather than hidden spreadsheet tabs.
The Consequences — Or Lack Thereof
The secretary and the office were cited for violating state information security rules, but no repercussions are expected. A Griswold spokesperson refused to say whether any employees were disciplined.
The employee responsible “amicably left the department” before the leak was even discovered — meaning they were never disciplined.
The Criminal Investigation
The Denver District Attorney’s Office looked into the leak to determine if a crime was committed. No criminal charges were filed against Griswold or her office — in stark contrast to Peters’ persecution.
Griswold’s Pattern of Misconduct
Several lawsuits in which plaintiffs accused Griswold or her office of violating the law resulted in settlements, though the settlements are not admissions of fault. These incidents include allegations of discrimination in the workplace based on race and ethnicity, improperly withholding data about deceased voters, and failing to remove ineligible voters from the state’s rolls leading to artificially high registration rates.
The Tina Peters Commutation — Current Development
This story has a very recent development directly relevant. On May 15, 2026, Governor Jared Polis commuted Tina Peters’ sentence. Griswold issued a statement calling the commutation “an affront to our democracy, the people of Colorado, and election officials across the country,” warning it would “validate and embolden the election denial movement.”
A Colorado Court of Appeals panel had previously found that the judge who sentenced Peters put too much weight on Peters’ beliefs about the election being stolen, violating her First Amendment rights, and directed the trial judge to resentence her without consideration of her comments on the 2020 election.
Bottom Line
The hypocrisy documented here is real, specific, and legally precise — not merely rhetorical:
Griswold persecuted and cheered the conviction of Tina Peters partly on the basis that passwords to voting equipment had been published online constituting an unauthorized data breach
Griswold’s own office then published passwords to voting equipment in 34 counties online — affecting far more counties than Peters’ actions
An independent investigation found Griswold and her office violated state security protocols
No criminal charges were filed against Griswold despite the Denver DA investigating
No employees were publicly disciplined
Griswold initially investigated herself rather than inviting independent investigators
Griswold delayed informing affected county clerks until the Republican Party forced the issue into public view
The one meaningful distinction Griswold’s defenders would make is that her breach was characterized as unintentional — whereas Peters’ actions were deliberate. That distinction has legal significance but does not resolve the fundamental question of equal application of law, particularly given that the specific charge language in Peters’ indictment — publishing passwords online as an unauthorized data breach — describes almost exactly what Griswold’s office did.
So Griswold benefited from the convoluted state of our justice system reminiscent of Hillary Clinton being let off the hook for her abuse of her personal e-mail system.
FBI.gov, “Statement by FBI Director James B. Comey on the Investigation of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s Use of a Personal E-Mail System,” July 5, 2016
To be clear, this is not to suggest that in similar circumstances, a person who engaged in this activity would face no consequences. To the contrary, those individuals are often subject to security or administrative sanctions. But that is not what we are deciding now.
As a result, although the Department of Justice makes final decisions on matters like this, we are expressing to Justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case.
In other words, if Donald Trump had done what Hillary got away with, he would have been unjustly perp walked, again.
Lady Justice is now deaf, dumb, and partially blind. She peeks out from beneath her blindfold before any proceeding with her one good eye to determine just who is the suspect, and acts accordingly to her new found wokeness.
Do those dots connect? You decide.
John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
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