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FORT COLLINS, Colo. — <\/span>Colorado Democrats voted overwhelmingly to censure one of their own, Gov. Jared Polis, for commuting the prison sentence<\/a> of Tina Peters, the election conspiracy theorist who amplified President Donald Trump’s baseless claims that mass fraud caused his 2020 election loss.<\/p>\n About 90% of the state party’s roughly 700 Central Committee members voted Wednesday for censure. It means that Polis, who is term-limited and serving his final year in office, will be barred from being an honored guest, featured speaker, or officially recognized party representative at party-sponsored events.<\/p>\n Peters, 70, is a former county clerk who was sentenced to nine years behind bars after being convicted<\/a> in 2024 for a scheme to make a copy of her county\u2019s election computer system.<\/p>\n She is set for release June 1 after Polis commuted her sentence Friday.<\/p>\n Trump has championed Peters’ cause. Reducing her sentence set a \u201cdangerous and disappointing\u201d precedent when democracy and voting rights are under attack nationwide, the Colorado Democratic Party said in a statement.<\/p>\n \u201cIt sends a message to future bad actors that election tampering has consequences, unless you\u2019re friends with the president,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n About 700 state party members, including current and former elected officials, petitioned for the party to condemn Polis. The subsequent censure vote was taken in a regularly scheduled party Central Committee virtual meeting.<\/p>\n In April, a Colorado appeals court upheld Peters’ conviction but ordered her to be resentenced, saying the judge wrongly punished her for speaking out about election fraud.<\/p>\n In commuting her sentence, Polis told Peters in a letter she deserved prison time but had been given an \u201cextremely unusual and lengthy\u201d sentence for a first-time, nonviolent offender.<\/p>\n He defended the commutation after the censure vote.<\/p>\n \u201cThe governor 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\u2019t the popular thing with everybody. Democracy is strongest when disagreement is met with debate and dialogue, not censorship,” Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama said in an emailed statement Thursday.<\/p>\n Peters thanked Polis and apologized for her crime in a statement after her sentence commutation.<\/p>\n Peters sneaked an outside computer expert, an associate of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell<\/a>, to make a copy of her county\u2019s Dominion Voting Systems election computer server during a system upgrade in 2021. She then joined Lindell onstage at a \u201ccybersymposium\u201d that promised to reveal proof of election rigging, and photos of the upgrade, including passwords, were posted online.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n