A federal judge on Monday threw out an attempt by former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters to avoid standing trial for criminal charges related to election equipment tampering.

Grand jurors indicted Peters, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for secretary of state in 2022, on multiple counts of attempting to influence a public servant, official misconduct and criminal impersonation. The charges relate to Peters’ alleged actions to grant an unauthorized person access to an upgrade of the county’s voting equipment, resulting in videos and confidential passwords later being posted online.

Late last year, Peters filed suit against District Attorney Daniel P. Rubinstein in federal court, claiming his prosecution was intended to “punish her” for exercising her constitutional right to inform “her fellow citizens” of alleged problems with voting equipment in Mesa County.

In a Jan. 8 order, U.S. District Court Judge Nina Y. Wang rejected the idea that she could insert herself into Peters’ ongoing state case.

“Ms. Peters insists that the Mesa County District Court is an inadequate forum to raise her federal constitutional claims, but has presented no authority that state law prohibits her from doing so,” Wang wrote.

Peters’ attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Her criminal trial is set to begin on Feb. 7.

“Judge Wang’s order dismissing Ms. Peters’ lawsuit, which sought to preclude prosecution of her grand jury indictment, and ordering her to pay our costs in getting her suit dismissed, paves the way for us to announce ready for trial at the upcoming pretrial conference,” Rubinstein told Colorado Politics.

Peters was removed by court order from supervising Mesa County’s 2021 election amid allegations she helped leak sensitive voting equipment data. Her federal complaint acknowledged she provided forensic images from the county’s election management system to “computer experts,” which allegedly confirmed her belief that a software upgrade ordered by Secretary of State Jena Griswold was legally problematic.

The subsequent investigation into Peters was “undertaken to punish and retaliate against her for having exercised her rights guaranteed by the First Amendment to question the integrity of the November 2020 election and to intimidate and discourage her from continuing to do so,” her lawyers claimed.

Instead, a Mesa County judge confirmed there was probable cause to support the grand jury’s indictment on election tampering charges. Her actions prompted Griswold to order Mesa County to replace its voting equipment in 2021, citing concerns about its security.

Rubinstein moved to dismiss Peters’ lawsuit against him, arguing there was no basis for a federal court to halt a valid state prosecution.

“This action represents nothing more than a final effort to circumvent the Colorado criminal justice system by either overturning trial and evidentiary decisions made by the trial judge (before either trial or an appeal has even occurred) or cancelling a valid state criminal prosecution entirely,” wrote Mesa County Attorney Todd M. Starr on Dec. 28. “Neither is appropriate in this case.”

Wang, in siding with Rubinstein, cited the longstanding legal doctrine generally prohibiting federal courts from interfering in state proceedings. She noted Peters had the opportunity to raise her constitutional arguments in state court, and there was insufficient evidence that Rubinstein is prosecuting her in bad faith.

Given the state judge’s finding that probable cause existed to charge Peters, “Ms. Peters fails to carry her heavy burden of establishing that her prosecution was frivolous or undertaken with no reasonably objective hope of success,” Wang wrote.

The remaining defendants in Peters’ lawsuit are Griswold, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and the United States itself.

Separately, a jury convicted Peters last year of a misdemeanor for refusing to turn over a tablet computer she used to record a court hearing in defiance of a judge’s instructions.

The case is Peters v. United States et al.