DENVER (AP) — It was no shock that state Rep. Ron Hanks and Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters handily lost their recent Republican primaries in Colorado for U.S. Senate and secretary of state.
Hanks was outspent 14-to-1 by his rival. Peters, who was vying to become Colorado’s top elections official, had been indicted on seven felony charges alleging she helped orchestrate a breach of her voting system’s hard drive.
But this past week, both candidates formally requested recounts of their primary elections from June 28, suggesting widespread irregularities seen by no one other than their own campaigns and allies.
“I have reasons to believe extensive malfeasance occurred in the June 2022 primary,” Peters wrote in her recount request, “and that the apparent outcome of this election does not reflect the will of Colorado voters not only for myself but also for many other America First statewide and local primary candidates.”
America First is a coalition of conservative candidates and officeholders who, among other things, promote the falsehood that Democrat Joe Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election.
This idea has seeped deeply into this year’s Republican primaries, which have revealed a new political strategy among numerous candidates: running on a platform that denies President Donald Trump’s defeat two years ago. As some of those candidates lose their own races, they are reaching new frontiers in election denial by insisting that those primaries, too, were rigged.
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