Colorado Governor Commutes Sentence of Former County Clerk Convicted in Election Case

Colorado’s Democratic governor announced on Friday that he has commuted the sentence of a former county clerk convicted of allowing unauthorized access to voting equipment after the 2020 election. The governor decided to reduce the sentence to four-and-a-half years, making the former clerk eligible for parole next month.

In a local TV interview, the governor said the former clerk committed a crime but that the length of the sentence was the issue at hand. The governor told the local TV anchor that he agreed with the appeals court that the judge in the sentencing hearing incorrectly considered the former clerk’s viewpoints and speech and held them against her.

The governor read a statement from the former clerk in which she said she made mistakes and was sorry. The former clerk stated that five years ago she misled the secretary of state when allowing a person to gain access to county voting equipment and that this was wrong.

The former clerk added that she has learned and grown during her time in prison. She said going forward she will make sure her actions follow the law and avoid the mistakes of the past.

The governor clarified that he never considered pardoning the former clerk because she showed no remorse for her beliefs or for belief in conspiracies. The governor said he vehemently disagrees with much of what she has to say, particularly her conspiratorial beliefs.

The governor stated that the way to rebut false claims is by disputing incorrect information and data rather than locking somebody up because they believe something that is unpopular, incorrect, conspiratorial and potentially dangerous. In recent months the current sitting U.S. president has repeatedly demanded that the former clerk be released from jail.

The president gave an entirely false account of the election security breach she committed and was convicted of in 2024. The president repeatedly claimed that the former clerk had caught people cheating, which is not true. The former clerk breached election security in search of evidence of fraud in the voting machines used in 2020 but failed to find any evidence.