PUEBLO —  Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters, convicted of participating in efforts related to election conspiracy theories promoted by President Donald Trump, was released from state prison Monday.

The Colorado Department of Corrections confirmed shortly after 8 a.m. that Peters, whose sentence was commuted by Gov. Jared Polis, was processed for release from the DOC’s La Vista Correctional Facility. Trump had long pressured Polis for Peters to be pardoned.

Officials said they would not provide additional details.

Here is the official statement from the DOC:

“The Colorado Department of Corrections can confirm that Tina Peters was processed from custody today, June 1, 2026. The CDOC will not provide additional details regarding residential placement, reporting schedules, or travel logistics. The CDOC does not coordinate media access or press conferences for individuals on parole; any requests for interviews or personal comments should be directed to Ms. Peters or her legal representatives.”

A handful of Tina Peters supporters, holding a sign that read, “Jena Griswold stole your vote,” cheered when they heard the news of her release, ignoring shouted insults from passersby.

“It’s a happy, happy day,” said Peters supporter Scott Russell. “Tina never should have gone to prison in the first place.”

About two dozen people outside the prison in Pueblo included a smattering of Peters supporters — some of whom had traveled from as far as Grand Junction and camped outside before sunrise — and a small group of media. At about 8:15 a.m., Colorado Department of Corrections spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez informed the group that Peters was no longer at the correctional facility.

Shortly after her release was confirmed by the Colorado Department of Corrections, Peters appeared on the program of Steve Bannon, a former Trump adviser who was part of a push to free Peters. Polis said he would shorten Peters’ sentence if she expressed regret about her actions.

But in her interview with Bannon, Peters repeated the debunked conspiracy theory that voting machines cheated Trump out of reelection in 2020 and portrayed herself as a martyr to the effort to expose it.

“I know that the Democrats are going to cheat, and no one is really addressing the problem that I spent my time in prison as retribution for,” Peters said.

Multiple reviews, recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump disputed his 2020 loss have all affirmed that Democrat Joe Biden won. Dominion Voting Systems, the company used for Colorado elections, has also succeeded in multiple defamation cases against conservative news outlets and others who repeated the false claims that its voting systems were somehow manipulated to change the outcome.

Polis on May 15 cut Peters’ nearly nine-year prison sentence in half, making her eligible for release from prison on June 1. The state Democratic Party’s central committee voted days later by an overwhelming margin to censure Polis and bar him from speaking at party events in response to the governor’s grant of clemency to Peters.

A spokesman for Polis, Eric Maruyama, said in a statement after the Democrats voted that Polis “made this decision based on the facts of the case and what he believed was the right thing to do.

“Sometimes the right thing isn’t the popular thing with everybody. Democracy is strongest when disagreement is met with debate and dialogue, not censorship.” 

Peters, a 70-year-old Grand Junction Republican and the former elected county clerk in Mesa County, was convicted by a jury in 2024 on seven charges, including four felonies, for orchestrating a plan to allow unauthorized access to her county’s election equipment in a failed attempt to find evidence that Colorado’s voting system is rigged. She was sentenced to state prison on Oct. 3, 2024.

In his clemency statement, Polis said he agreed with a recent appeals court ruling that found Peters had been handed an “extremely unusual and lengthy” sentence because of her stated beliefs about election integrity.

Peters has reiterated her intention to continue promoting her stance on elections.

“I have always said I will never back down, I will never give up, and I will never give in. I will always stand for truth, transparency and fairness in our elections,” she said.

Peters went on to accuse Secretary of State Jena Griswold and Attorney General Phil Weiser of trying to “cover up what was done to the people of Colorado,” referring to two elected Democrats who helped lead the prosecution of Peters, along with Mesa County’s Republican district attorney. Despite that, she added, “I will keep speaking the truth.”

The Associated Press and Ernest Luning contributed to this report.