Two former Colorado GOP candidates Tina Peters and Ron Hanks have submitted new requests to the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office for recounts of their respective races, and at least Peters has said she raised money to pay for it.
Peters, the Mesa County clerk and recorder indicted on allegations of election tampering, sought the Republican nomination for secretary of state in June but lost by a wide margin. Hanks, a state House representative, was defeated in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate. Both candidates have denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election and baselessly claim widespread voter fraud, including in their own election losses.
Both Peters and Hanks had requested recounts earlier this month, but Peters and Hanks failed to pay the money required to conduct a recount by the next day, a deadline set in state law. They also asked for county clerks to conduct hand recounts, but the state’s Elections Division denied the request based on state law and current regulations, saying recounts have to be conducted in the same manner as the election tabulation — using counties’ voting equipment.
Peters’ and Hanks’ races did not automatically trigger recounts because their votes were not within half a percent of the winning candidates’ votes, but they are allowed to request them if they pay associated costs for county clerks to do that work.
Although they both asked again for hand recounts in their requests on Wednesday, the state’s Elections Division informed them that ballots could only be rescanned and the division would need to get confirmation by 5 p.m. Wednesday from each of the candidates if they wanted to move forward. As of 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, only Hanks had amended his request and asked for rescanning, but the secretary of state’s office said if Peters provides the funds by the end of Thursday, a recount can be performed.
The earlier estimate for the cost to counties that the candidates would each have to pay was cited at $236,279.37, and Peters’ campaign announced on Wednesday that she raised $230,000 to pay for the recount that she was still insisting be conducted by hand.
“If Colorado truly is the ‘Gold Standard’ for elections for the nation to follow, then Jena Griswold and candidate for the Republican ticket, Pam Anderson should be more than happy to do this,” a news release stated. “It will be suspicious to the people if Jena Griswold prevents the recount or adds NEW rules to the request.”
But the new cost from the Elections Division released Wednesday afternoon estimated that a recount for Peters’ race would now be $255,912.33 and Hanks’ recount would be $256,172.33. The two candidates’ amounts are not the same because of a difference in the number of ballots in Larimer County, according to the secretary of state’s office.
The deadline to submit payments is Thursday.
Both candidates’ figures went up because now counties could be starting a recount on Friday and have to complete the recounts by Aug. 4 as required by statute, potentially requiring work to be done over the weekend and paying for additional support to process the ballots in a shorter amount of time, said Annie Orloff, spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office.
“The candidates were also each notified that the recount would be conducted in the same method of tabulation as they were originally counted, and not by hand,” Orloff wrote in an email. “This is required by Election Rule 10.13.1, which has been in place since the (former Republican Secretary of State Scott) Gessler administration.”
Neither Peters’ campaign nor Hanks responded to requests for comment Wednesday afternoon.
