Since being released early from prison in June, former Colorado election clerk Tina Peters has been granted extraordinary access to the halls of power in Washington.
Peters said she has traveled to Washington seven times, visited the White House at least twice, and met with senior officials at the Justice and Commerce departments — remarkable access for someone on parole after a 2024 felony conviction for tampering with voting machines in an attempt to show that the 2020 election was rigged against President Donald Trump.
She’s a high-profile example of a group of Trump supporters and conservative activists trying to lay out a roadmap for the president to follow. They are urging him to take more extreme steps to try and influence the outcome of an election that many polls suggest could end Republican control of Congress. But as the election closes in, the activists are now voicing increasing concerns that the president and his administration aren’t going to act on their ideas.
Three Moments From Last Night’s Ossoff-Collins Debate
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D) and Rep. Mike Collins (R) held their second debate in the Georgia Senate race Tuesday, and many of the themes of the first reemerged. Ossoff turned over the many ways in which, even within the context of today’s Republican Party, Collins’ radicalism is on the surface. Collins struggled to return a blow, or to distance himself from the unpopular president.
Who won in 2020?
One of the moderators, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Greg Bluestein, noted that Collins said Trump “won” the 2020 election as recently as June. Does he still beleive that?
Collins dodged, saying that “Joe Biden went into office” before pivoting to criticizing his presidency.
Ten minutes later, Ossoff returned to the question. “You didn’t answer earlier. Answer now. Did Donald Trump win the 2020 election?”
“They know my views on that,” Collins replied. “There was a lot of doubt in that election.”
Fifteen minutes after that, Ossoff returned to it a third time. “You still haven’t answered tonight whether you believe Donald Trump actually won the 2020 election,” he said. “Here’s your third chance. Did Donald Trump really win the 2020 election? You want to answer, Mike?”
“I have said numerous times that Joe Biden was the president in 2021,” Collins said.
“Not what I asked,” Ossoff replied.
OSSOFF: You didn't answer earlier. Answer now. Did Donald Trump win the 2020 election?MIKE COLLINS: You know, the 2020 election. Everybody has seen my views on thatOSSOFF: What are they?COLLINS: There was a lot of doubt in that election OSSOFF: I didn't hear an answer
What’s up with all the white nationalists around Collins?
Collins’ white nationalism problem was again a theme of this debate.
Moderator Faith Jessie of Atlanta news station 11 Alive reminded Collins of Ossoff’s line last week — that he had “hired half the Third Reich” — and asked for his response. “Are you a white nationalist?” Jessie asked. “And what do you say to Black Georgians who question whether you will represent them equally?”
“I condemn any sort a hate speech,” he said. “Antisemitism, hate of any kind. It’s abhorrent. And I’ve fired people when things happen, fired them,” he added, a possible reference to his former chief of staff, who bragged of his efforts trying to get a Holocaust denier out of prison.
He then went on to suggest a link between people who feel “forgotten” and rising antisemitism. “We do have a problem with antisemitism and war and hate around the world,” he said. “These young people feel like they’ve forgotten and they’re just lashing out. And this hate speech has got to stop and we’ve got to educate them.”
Mike Collins makes apologies for white nationalists like his son in law: "These people feel like they've been forgotten. And they're just lashing out."
Ossoff asked Collins about a joke he repeatedly made online, suggesting immigrants to the U.S. be tossed from helicopters — an allusion to extrajudicial killings carried out by right-wing Latin American dictators, including Chile’s Augusto Pinochet, a meme that the very online right loves to invoke.
“Mike Collins called for killing immigrants by throwing them to their deaths out of helicopters,” Ossoff said. “I’d like to hear if Mike Collins stands by that statement. Do you still believe in the extrajudicial killing of immigrants?”
Collins did not answer the question and pivoted to talking about the Laken Riley Act and border enforcement.
OSSOFF: Mike Collins called for killing immigrants by throwing them to their deaths out of helicopters. I'd like to hear if Mike Collins stands by that statement. Do you still believe in the extrajudicial killing of immigrants?MIKE COLLINS: *changes topic*
CASTLE ROCK, CO – JUNE 26: Former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters speaks during the first day of the Rocky Mountain Voice Freedom Festival on Friday, June 26, 2026, at the Douglas County Fairgrounds in Castle Rock, Colo. (Photo by Timothy Hurst/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
The election-denying former Colorado county Clerk Tina Peters, who met with Trump earlier this month, has been pushing an idea that the 2026 midterms will need instant “manual verification.” She’s got a whole website where she lays out “the Tina Plan,” though in fairly opaque language.
In an interview that has been floating around since September but that I first saw surfaced by Newsweek, her lawyer, Trump’s longtime friend Peter Ticktin, makes plain what she’s talking about: “Her idea is grab, get control over the ballots as soon as the machines spit them through and then do a recount,” he told a right-wing podcaster.
He went on to explain that, if Trump does not trust the results of a future election, he “is not going to relinquish control again.”
“It’s better if we’re going to have a civil war of any sort that it be martial law with our side in control of the armaments,” Ticktin outrageously declared.
That this is (likely) all big talk, and illegal, does not make it any less wild that these ideas may have been presented in the Oval Office when Peters recently met with Trump. Peters has also reportedly met with the DOJ and Department of Commerce.
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That plan was quashed by the Supreme Court after a tumultuous legal battle. But that hasn’t taken the spotlight off the Postal Service, which is still facing a lot of questions about how prepared it is to handle the massive flow of ballots moving around the country over the next four weeks.
The Postal Service has lost money for decades. Since 2007, the agency has lost $118 billion. Despite a mantra that “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” would keep the mail from getting through, the Postal Service is charging customers more and delivering some mail more slowly. Things are so bad that the Postmaster General has warned that the agency could run out of cash early next year.
The problems are a concern for tens of millions of Americans expected to vote by mail in this November’s elections. This year, the challenges could be compounded by belt-tightening measures that could lead to more ballots being rejected if voters aren’t paying attention.
The so-called Regional Transportation Optimization plan the agency rolled out last year has reduced pickup times at more than 15,000 post offices that are more than 50 miles from a regional processing center. That means a ballot could sit in a local post office and not get a postmark until the following day.
For people dropping off their ballots at the last minute, that could mean the difference between their votes being counted or rejected. The problems are likely to have the biggest impact on rural areas, which tend to be more likely to vote for Republicans.
Oregon has been an early case study in how the system works — or doesn’t. Oregon, which was the first state to shift to voting entirely by mail in 1998, was part of the Postal Service pilot project testing the consolidation process. The results were not encouraging. The Postal Service’s own audit found that performance declined and complaints increased.
Most importantly for voters, Oregon has seen an increase in ballots being rejected because they weren’t postmarked as required by Election Day. During the primary election this past May, more than 7,300 ballots that might have been counted when they came in after Election Day were rejected because they didn’t have a proper postmark, amounting to a 13% rejection rate, up from 9.5% in 2024.
That set off some alarm bells in Oregon, which is trying to address the problems and ensure that fewer ballots are rejected this November.
Leading the charge is Secretary of State Tobias Read, a Democrat who has worked to expand the state’s ballot drop box system, which operates independently of the Postal Service. Oregon has more than 320 drop boxes. More than 60% of all Oregon voters used drop boxes in 2024, but it’s much easier for people in urban areas to use them than those in rural areas, where it can take an hour or more to reach one. Read just got state lawmakers to add another 20 for the November election to help expand the system’s reach.
Read is so worried about postal delays that he’s encouraging people to send ballots back a week before the election or instead plan to secure a postmark or vote another way.
“We can’t count on it,” said Read, referring to the Postal Service. “It might work, but I don’t want anyone to be taking a chance with their ballot.”
Voters who send their ballots back close to Election Day should go into the post office and ask workers to manually postmark the ballot, Read said.
“It’s not that the Postal Service is something you should avoid,” he said. “Just do it early if you’re going to use the mail.”
The Postal Service itself is also encouraging voters to send their ballots back well before Election Day to ensure they are counted. The agency has a 90-second public service announcement on its website urging people to “mail early.” For some voters, the agency suggests that people send their ballots in at least a week before the deadline.
In Washington, Secretary of State Steve Hobbs is going further and urging people to send in their ballots 10 days before the deadlines to ensure that they aren’t rejected. The problem with ballots being rejected because of late postmarks skyrocketed in some Washington counties by more than 300% between the 2024 primary and the 2026 primary.
Like Read, Hobbs, a Democrat, is encouraging people to use a drop box to return their ballots – and make sure they make a plan to ensure their vote is counted.
“If you’re going to mail, you better do it right away,” he said. “Don’t wait.”
Dion Nissenbaum is Votebeat’s senior national reporter and is based in Houston. Contact Dion at dnissenbaum@votebeat.org.
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