DENVER (AP) — Colorado Republicans on Tuesday chose a former local official who pledged to keep politics out of running elections as their nominee for secretary of state over an indicted county clerk who gained national prominence by promoting conspiracy theories about voting machines.
In spurning Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, Republican primary voters appeared to reject the conspiracy theories and false claims that have spread among conservatives since the last presidential election. Peters has appeared regularly with prominent allies of former President Donald Trump who claim without evidence that the 2020 election was stolen from him and on Tuesday night made similar claims of “cheating” in the primary that were quickly rebutted by the primary winner and the secretary of state.
The win by Pam Anderson, the former Jefferson County clerk and past head of the state clerks’ association, sets up a November match-up with current Secretary of State Jena Griswold, a Democrat seeking a second term who ran unopposed in Tuesday’s primary.
Despite Peters’ loss, Griswold’s campaign framed the November election as a referendum on voting security and false claims peddled by Republicans across the country that widespread fraud is the reason Trump lost reelection.
Griswold campaign manager Kyla Sabado said in a statement that Anderson “cannot be trusted to stand up to the far-right extremists that dominate the Republican Party.”
Anderson doesn’t bring the political baggage of Peters...
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