GOP conspiracy theorist who ruined $600k worth of voting machines running for Colorado Secretary of State

‘They are coming after me because I am standing in their way — of truth, transparency and elections held closest to the people,’ says Tina Peters

Tina Peters was arrested on Tuesday at a bagel shop (9NEWS)

Tina Peters, the Colorado county clerk and GOP election conspiracy theorist who was removed from overseeing county elections after allegedly helping two other Republican activists steal voting machine software, has declared herself a candidate for Colorado’s top elections post.

A Colorado judge stripped Ms Peters of her oversight of Mesa County, Colorado elections in October after finding she allowed unauthorised copies of election machine software and data to be published by right-wing media outlets and used it as an exhibit at a talk she gave to an October gathering of election-denying Donald Trump supporters in South Dakota.

That court case was brought by Jena Griswold, Colorado’s Secretary of State. Ms Peters is now one of a number of candidates seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Ms Griswold in the November midterm elections.

According to court papers filed by Ms Griswold, the unauthorised access to and disclosure of election equipment data forced the decertification of Mesa County’s equipment, which the Grand Junction Sentinel reported as costing as much as $600,000 to replace.

In February, Ms Peters was arrested by police who were serving a search warrant for her iPad on charges of obstructing police and obstructing government operations.

Speaking on right-wing activist and former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast on Monday, Ms Peters claimed she still had bruises from her police encounter, and claimed her candidacy was a “wall” between listeners’ votes and “nationalised elections”.

“They are coming after me because I am standing in their way — of truth, transparency and elections held closest to the people,” she said.

Ms Griswold said in a statement Monday that Ms Peters was both “unfit to be secretary of state” and” a danger to Colorado elections”.