People in the western Colorado city of Grand Junction would like their hometown to be known for its desert hiking trails and sunny golf courses, red-rock canyons and river rafting.
But these days, mentions of their town are tangled up with one person: Tina Peters, the county clerk who became an emblem of the election-denial movement after she was convicted in a plot to tamper with voting machines under her control to show the 2020 election was rigged against President Trump.
On Monday, Ms. Peters, 70, will walk out of a Colorado prison a free woman, her nine-year sentence cut short by a commutation from Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat. His grant of clemency followed months of debate and political attacks from Mr. Trump, who demanded the governor free Ms. Peters.
She is set to be paroled to Grand Junction, where she once oversaw elections and still owns a home. Her hometown is solidly Republican and voted for Mr. Trump in the past three presidential elections, but residents there are now deeply divided over whether Ms. Peters is a martyr or villain — and whether they even want her back.
“I hate that this is what my town is known for,” said Dan Rubinstein, the district attorney in Mesa County, which includes Grand Junction. He prosecuted Ms. Peters and had urged Mr. Polis not to commute her sentence.
Ms. Peters’s supporters are celebrating her early release like the liberation of a political prisoner. They have been running a prayer group for her, writing to her in prison and contributing to her commissary account. Now, they are planning fund-raisers and wondering if she will jump back into politics as the midterm elections approach.
“Tina was wronged here — horribly,” said Mark McCallister, a friend and former local Republican Party official. “She stood her ground on her beliefs. If she ran for office again, I’d vote for her.”
Peter Ticktin, a lawyer for Ms. Peters, said his client wanted to rest and recover from a persistent cough she developed in prison. He said she hoped to visit her mother out of state, and was also continuing to challenge her conviction with the Colorado Supreme Court.
“She wants to recuperate,” Mr. Ticktin said in an interview. “She needs to get her strength back.”
Others in Mesa County, including local elected Republican leaders, blame Ms. Peters for costing taxpayers $2 million and say they worry that her return will make their city name a shorthand for baseless election-fraud conspiracies.
Critics also say that Ms. Peters, far from being chastened or remorseful, is more defiant and well known than ever after the demand for her release became the focus of a relentless pressure campaign by Mr. Trump. Despite her status as a felon, they said, she can now claim vindication thanks to Mr. Polis’s commutation, and a symbolic pardon Mr. Trump issued last December.
Some who testified against Ms. Peters during her 2024 trial asked Colorado’s parole board to keep her away from Mesa County, or bar her from profiting from her notoriety. It is unclear how she will earn a living on the outside, but there is a website that solicits donations for her legal bills and living expenses.
Vice President JD Vance has also said that Ms. Peters could be eligible for a payout from a proposed $1.8 billion fund that is likely to benefit Mr. Trump’s allies. Ms. Peters was prosecuted not by the federal government, but by the local district attorney, a Republican, and convicted by a jury of her fellow Mesa County residents.
In a clemency application to the governor filed in January, Ms. Peters expressed some regret over her felony convictions, which involved allowing an outsider to gain access to voting equipment under her control and misleading the Colorado secretary of state. She vowed to obey the law going forward.
But social media statements she and her supporters have posted since the commutation have not been as contrite. She criticized Colorado’s Democratic secretary of state and attorney general, who fiercely opposed her release from prison, and said she was focused on the midterms.
“I have always said I will never back down, I will never give up, and I will never give in,” she said in a May 22 social media post. “I will keep speaking the truth.”
That worries some people in Grand Junction.
They wonder whether Ms. Peters and her allies will soon be holding rallies on the courthouse steps to denounce America’s elections and decry her prosecution. They said that her presence could raise tensions around town and provoke a new wave of harassment against local elections workers.
“We’re so tired of this,” said Anne Landman, a local blogger and liberal critic of Ms. Peters. “It was great having Tina in prison because we had peace and quiet on this whole election-denying thing.”
Sheila Reiner, who was appointed to oversee elections in Mesa County in 2021 during the criminal investigation into Ms. Peters, said the office was reeling when she took over. Traumatized employees had been interviewed by the law enforcement. People were sending intimidating emails. The county was scrambling to replace voting equipment that was decertified after passwords and hard-drive images were posted online by election deniers.
Ms. Reiner, a Republican, said she was not eager to see Ms. Peters return.
“She’s coming back to cause trouble,” Ms. Reiner said. “I have no doubt.”
Colorado’s Republican primary on June 30 may offer a test of whether Mesa County wants a mainstream Republican or an upstart in the mold of Ms. Peters running its elections.
Bobbie Gross, the current county clerk, has tried to restore trust by offering tours of the elections offices and letting the public view anonymized images of cast ballots. But she is facing a Republican primary opponent supported by grass-roots conservatives who backed Ms. Peters, and who continue to doubt the validity of mail-in voting and the 2020 election results.
Grand Junction, with a population of 72,000, is small enough that many people know Ms. Peters personally. She knocked on their doors when she first decided to run for office. They bumped into her while grocery shopping at City Market, or while renewing their driver’s license at her office.
Cindy Ficklin, a Republican friend of Ms. Peters and real estate broker, said Ms. Peters had been wrong to break the law, but she would still give her a hug when she returned. Ms. Ficklin expected Ms. Peters to hit the speaking and book tour circuits if her parole allowed.
“She’s a celebrity now,” she said.
Nick Corasaniti contributed reporting.
