Colorado elections manager felt ‘leery’ as apparent new hire copied voting machine data

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (CN) — A Mesa County elections manager on Wednesday testified to feeling leery as she watched a supposed new hire copy data from the Colorado county's voting equipment in May 2021, data that was leaked online and resulted in criminal charges against former county clerk and recorder Tina Peters.

“I was a little leery, because I knew by doing that he was breaking our contract with Dominion Voting Systems,” Sandra Brown, Mesa County's elections manager, testified.

Brown said the man who made the copies was introduced to her as a new hire named Jerry Wood. She later found out the man's real name was Conan Hayes, a former pro surfer associated with the Stop the Steal movement who never worked for the county.

In fact, Peters had issued the badge to Wood after he agreed to work as a consultant, but she never called him to work and the county’s human resources manager never formally hired him. The secretary of state’s office initially thought Wood was behind the leak, but investigators later verified that he wasn’t even in Grand Junction at the time his keycard was used.

Prosecutors called Brown as a witness in their case against Peters, who faces three felony counts of attempting to influence a public servant, four felony counts related to impersonation and identity theft and three misdemeanor counts for official misconduct, violating her duties and failing to comply with the secretary of state’s requirements.

Prosecutors contend that in May 2021, Peters instructed her deputy clerk to turn off security cameras and arranged for Hayes to use Wood's credentials to observe and photograph the voting machine trusted build, an update process conducted in person since the machines can’t connect to the internet.

The voting machine data and passwords were sent to a Florida-based company for analysis and posted on the social media site Telegram by Ron Watkins, a key player in the QAnon conspiracy movement.

Brown faced official misconduct charges for her role in the scheme. Brown testified that Peters visited her in jail after she first turned herself in. Brown recalled Peters telling her to get an attorney and saying, “I love you, and you have support, and don’t say anything."

After pleading guilty, Brown was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined $2,000.

Peters’ former deputy clerk, Belinda Knisley also entered a plea agreement and was sentenced to two years’ probation after pleading guilty to three misdemeanor charges.

On Wednesday, Knisley told the jury her testimony didn’t change based on her agreement.

“I only know the truth,” Knisley said.

During cross-examination, Knisley testified she helped Peters get Hayes into the trusted build, because Peters was her boss and she thought it was her duty to preserve records.

When Peters learned the voting machine data had been posted online, she told Knisley “I’m fucked." Knisley recalled asking Peters, “How can you be in trouble when you were responsible for making a backup?”

Knisley testified Peters felt she was going to go to jail “because of the secretary of state being against her, was her opinion, and that because of what she did that they would come against her.”

Peters' defense before the court of public opinion has long been that Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat, is persecuting her for speaking out against the government. Twenty-first Judicial District Judge Matthew Barrett, however, has limited Peters' ability to bring in evidence of her wider theory of election conspiracy and misconduct.

Barrett cleared the courtroom Wednesday morning to hear an ex parte argument from defense attorney John Case in support of upholding a subpoena to call Dominion attorney Michael Frontera as a witness. Frontera’s attorney filed to quash the subpoena, calling any testimony he would give irrelevant since he wasn’t present at the 2021 trusted build.

Barrett ultimately granted to motion to quash, calling any probative value from Frontera’s testimony “significantly outweighed by prejudice.”

The trial started on July 31 and is scheduled to run through Aug. 12.

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