President Trump said he is granting a pardon to Tina Peters, a former Colorado county clerk who was convicted of allowing unauthorized access to voting machines — even though the pardon power is widely understood to only apply to federal crimes.

President Donald Trump issued a symbolic pardon for Tina Peters on Thursday, but it alone won’t free the former Colorado elections administrator who was convicted under state laws of orchestrating a data breach scheme driven by false claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump has pardoned former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, who was convicted of breaching voting systems. A federal judge recently denied her request for release.

Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young announced Friday that he is ending his bid to challenge Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans in the competitive 8th Congressional District, leaving three Democrats running in next year’s primary.

Trump granted a full pardon to Tina Peters, former clerk of Mesa County, who was sentenced to prison for "demanding Honest Elections."

An overwhelming majority of Colorado’s unaffiliated voters say they reject both major parties and want to see Democrats and Republicans become more moderate, according to the findings of a new statewide poll.

At a party hosted by the North Denver Democrats, Wellington Webb, Denver City Auditor, addressed the furor that had been created by Denver Mayor Federico Peña’s shock announcement that he would not run for a third term.

“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” Trump said on Truth Social on Thursday. He said he was granting Peters a pardon for “her attempts to expose voter fraud” in the 2020 presidential election.

The Trump administration wants driver’s license numbers and the last four digits of social security numbers for all of Colorado’s registered voters, and on Thursday, they sued the Colorado Secretary of State to get it.

A federal magistrate judge denied former Mesa County, Colorado, Clerk Tina Peters’ request to be released from prison while she appeals her state conviction.

The president’s stated intention to pardon Tina Peters, jailed for tampering with election machines in 2020, has set off a legal fight over the extent of Mr. Trump’s pardon powers.