Michigan: State, company officials dispute report on Antrim County voting | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

State officials are disputing a report on Antrim County’s voting equipment — signed by a consultant who confused Michigan and Minnesota voting districts in an earlier election analysis — that says the county’s equipment “is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.” Michigan Elections Director Jonathan Brater said in a weekend court filing the report “makes a series of unsupported conclusions, ascribes motives of fraud and obfuscation to processes that are easily explained as routine election procedures or error corrections, and suggests without explanation that elements of election software not used in Michigan are somehow responsible for tabulation or reporting errors that are either nonexistent or easily explained.” And Dominion Voting Systems, the company whose equipment is used in Antrim, issued a statement saying it is the subject of a “continuing malicious and widespread disinformation campaign” intended to undermine confidence in the Nov. 3 election. Judge Kevin Elsenheimer of Michigan’s 13th Circuit Court ordered the release of the report Monday, following minor redactions of references to software coding that were agreed to by both sides. State and county officials withdrew earlier objections to the report’s release. The report is signed by Russell Ramsland of Allied Security Operations Group. Ramsland, a cybersecurity analyst and former Republican congressional candidate, mistook voting jurisdictions in Minnesota for Michigan towns in one recent flawed analysis of voter turnout in the Nov. 3 election. In another, filed in support of a federal lawsuit filed in Michigan, he made wildly inaccurate claims about voter turnout in various Michigan municipalities claiming that Detroit, where turnout was 51%, had turnout of 139%, and that North Muskegon, which had turnout of 78%, had voter turnout of 782%.

Full Article: State, company officials dispute report on Antrim County voting

Michigan Republican leaders affirm state’s electoral votes and reprimand lawmaker who suggested there might be violence. | Sydney Ember, Kathleen Gray and Glenn Thrush/The New York Times

The two most senior leaders in the Michigan legislature, both Republicans, on Monday affirmed the state’s electoral votes that would formalize Joseph R. Biden’s victory, as a fellow lawmaker was punished for suggesting there may be violence at the meeting of electors. In blistering terms, House Speaker Lee Chatfield wrote that he “can’t fathom risking our norms, traditions and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because some think there may have been enough widespread fraud to give him the win,” describing such a move as “unprecedented for good reason.” “That’s why there is not enough support in the House to cast a new slate of electors,” he added. “I fear we’d lose our country forever. This truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the Electoral College. And I can’t stand for that. I won’t.” Last month, Mr. Chatfield and Mike Shirkey, the state Senate majority leader, were both summoned by President Trump to the White House in a bid to get lawmakers to substitute their own slate of electors. The two men, both rumored to be interested in higher office, went through with the visit but rebuffed Mr. Trump’s request. Mr. Biden won Michigan by about 150,000 votes, a much greater margin than in the other most hotly contested battlegrounds. The electors upheld those results on Monday afternoon.

Full Article: Michigan Republican leaders affirm state’s electoral votes and reprimand lawmaker who suggested there might be violence. – The New York Times

Michigan: Judge to conduct hearing on whether to lift protective order, release Antrim County results | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

A judge is expected to hold a hearing Monday morning on a lawyer’s request to lift a protective order shielding the results of a court-ordered examination of voting equipment in Antrim County — a county that President Donald Trump easily won, but where his legal team is alleging irregularities.Portage attorney Matthew DePerno filed an emergency motion Friday with 13th Circuit Judge Kevin Elsenheimer, claiming he has “received initial preliminary results which are important for the public, the U.S. government and the Michigan Legislature to review and understand,” and are “an issue of national security.” It’s the latest bizarre twist in a saga that began with an election night error in how the county compiled and reported its unofficial election results. County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican, has claimed responsibility for an error that resulted in Democrat Joe Biden initially appearing to have won the northern Michigan County. State and county officials and an election security expert from the University of Michigan have all said the Dominion Voting Systems tabulators and related election software in Antrim functioned the way it should have. But Guy made a mistake when she updated ballot information in Antrim after learning the name of a candidate in one township had been omitted. Because she updated information only in the one affected township, instead of updating the information in all precincts across the county, there was a mismatch when results from various precincts were combined to compile the unofficial results, causing numbers to be transposed and reported inaccurately, officials have said. The results were corrected during the county canvass, conducted by two Republican and two Democratic board members, and the official county results show Trump defeating Biden by nearly 4,000 votes, with just over 16,000 votes cast for president. But DePerno, who has said he is not working for but is “happy to cooperate” with the Trump campaign, has claimed in court filings that the tabulators are compromised.

Full Article: Lawyer to judge: Release results of voting equipment exam in Antrim

Michigan: Trump backers want Supreme Court to review another election case | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Six of President Donald Trump’s supporters in Michigan want the U.S. Supreme Court to consider their case to overturn the state’s election results based on conspiracy theories and unsubstantiated claims of fraud. It’s an attempt that’s unlikely to succeed, according to other lawyers involved the matter. On Friday night, the nation’s high court denied a lawsuit championed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who hoped to challenge the results in four battleground states, including Michigan, that voted for President-elect Joe Biden. The Supreme Court said Paxton lacked standing to bring his case, which focused on the states’ election laws. Also on Friday night, attorneys representing six Michigan residents informed the defendants in a separate case that they intended to seek an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to consider their claims against the state’s election. The case in question involves President Donald Trump supporter and conservative attorney Sidney Powell. She originally brought the litigation in Michigan’s Eastern District on behalf of three individuals who would have been presidential electors for Trump and three local GOP officials.

Full Article: Trump backers want Supreme Court to review Michigan election case

Michigan Attorney General says Texas ‘has no standing to disenfranchise’ millions of voters | Zach Budryk/The Hill

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel (D) blasted a Texas lawsuit seeking to overturn the presidential election in four states, calling it “outrageous.”Nessel called the lawsuit “really one of the more outrageous that we’ve ever seen in the United States,” adding “Texas has no standing to disenfranchise the 5.5 million voters in the state of Michigan … there’s been no injury that’s been demonstrated to the state of Texas.”She noted that the results of the election in Michigan have already been certified, that challenges to the result have repeatedly lost in court and that “Texas has failed to identify a single voter who voted in Michigan who should not have.”“It’s outrageous that they filed this and the fact that they would try to disenfranchise the 39 million people that live in these four states,” Nessel told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “It’s really disturbing.” The lawsuit seeks to invalidate the results in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and Wisconsin.Nessel took aim at Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) and the other state attorneys general who have signed onto the lawsuit, saying that as attorney general, “I took an oath to uphold the Michigan constitution and the United States constitution to the best of my ability, so help me God.”

Full Article: Michigan AG says Texas ‘has no standing to disenfranchise’ millions of voters | TheHill

Michigan Secretary of State Benson to audit results of state, 200 jurisdictions including Wayne, Antrim counties | Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

The Michigan Bureau of Elections will conduct a raft of audits in the coming weeks, including reviews at the state level, in Antrim and Wayne counties, and in 200 other jurisdictions. The undertaking is the “most comprehensive post-election audits of any election in state history,” the bureau said Wednesday.  The preliminary plans come after more than a month of lawsuits, press conferences, committee hearings and protests questioning Michigan’s election results, which placed President-elect Joe Biden 154,000 votes ahead of President Donald Trump. Post-election audits are common, but those announced Wednesday by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson are more than have ever been conducted before in an effort to demonstrate “the integrity of our election.” “Clerks across the state carried out an extremely successful election amidst the challenges created by record-breaking turnout and more than double the absentee ballots ever before cast in our state, a global pandemic and the failure of the Michigan Legislature to provide more than 10 hours for pre-processing of absentee ballots,” Benson said in a statement.

Full Article: Benson to conduct statewide audits, plus ones in Wayne, Antrim counties

Michigan moves to intervene in Antrim County lawsuit alleging voter fraud | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson filed an emergency motion Wednesday to intervene in a lawsuit alleging fraud in Antrim County, as the small GOP stronghold in northern Michigan is emerging as a last hope for allies of President Donald Trump seeking to cast doubts on the outcome of the Nov. 3 presidential election. As chief election officer, Benson is concerned about allegations in the lawsuit that the county’s election results were “somehow influenced by fraud or the purported rigging of the … tabulators,” Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast said in a Tuesday email to an attorney pursuing the lawsuit. A hearing on the motion is set for 3 p.m. Thursday. If the judge grants approval, it would give Benson a seat at the table, through the Attorney General’s Office, to scrutinize the claims more closely and defend the actions of state and local election officials and the election equipment they use. Well-publicized errors in the unofficial election results Antrim County sent to the state of Michigan on election night made it appear that Democrat Joe Biden received more votes than Trump, when in fact Trump had won the county by nearly 4,000 votes. The errors were corrected and Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican, took responsibility. According to a court filing, Guy made an error Oct. 23 when she updated ballot information to include a Mancelona Township candidate who had been inadvertently omitted from the ballot.

Full Article: State wants to intervene in Antrim suit alleging vote fraud

Michigan Supreme Court, in 4-3 decision, rejects election fraud case | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

The Michigan Supreme Court, in a 4-3 decision, denied requests from two voters who backed President Donald Trump and sought an election audit and other actions to address alleged fraud related to absentee ballots. Angelic Johnson and Linda Lee Tarver, both members of Black Voices for Trump, petitioned the state Supreme Court directly on Nov. 26. They sought a range of court actions, in addition to an audit, including: a declaration that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had violated their constitutional rights; seizure of ballots, ballot boxes and poll books; appointment of a special master or legislative committee to investigate claims of fraud related to the counting of absentee ballots at the TCF Center in Detroit, and an injunction preventing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer from certifying Michigan’s presidential election results, which has already happened. The three Democratic-nominated justices — Chief Justice Bridget McCormack and Justices Richard Bernstein and Megan Cavanagh — were joined by Republican nominee Elizabeth Clement in denying the requested actions without first hearing oral arguments. Justices Brian Zahra, David Viviano and Stephen Markman dissented, saying the court should call for additional briefings and oral arguments and hear the case fully on an expedited basis. Clement, in concurring with the majority on the court, wrote that some areas of Michigan law remain unsettled surrounding elections, audits and what actions can be taken by those who believe a statewide presidential election has been wrongly decided. However, “this court routinely chooses not to hear cases which raise interesting and unsettled legal questions in the abstract when we conclude the case would be a poor practical vehicle for addressing those questions — which is my view of this case and these questions,” Clement wrote.

Full Article: Michigan Supreme Court, in 4-3 decision, rejects election fraud case

Michigan: Detroit elections expert defends TCF operations, refutes allegations during Senate hearing | Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

In a clear and methodical tone, a longtime Michigan elections expert refuted a litany of fraud and misconduct allegations focused on absentee ballots in Detroit during a legislative hearing on Tuesday. Chris Thomas served roughly 37 years as the state elections administrator, working under Republican and Democratic secretaries of state. This year, he worked as a senior adviser for Detroit, spending time at TCF Center, where the city counted absentee ballots. His testimony was clear: Thousands of absentee ballots in Detroit were not counted multiple times. Dead people did not vote. Mysterious ballots did not turn up at TCF in the middle of the night. “I’m not here to tell you it was perfect but it was a damn good election,” Thomas testified. There was human error, but this is typical and was corrected in accordance with the law, Thomas said. He also said lawmakers could help improve operations ahead of the next election, specifically by giving local clerks more time to process absentee ballots ahead of Election Day. “These folks were not necessarily attuned to what they were looking at,” Thomas said, summarizing allegations of misconduct made by Republicans and others at TCF. Thomas was the first elections official with Detroit to testify before the Senate Oversight Committee since the Nov. 3 election. He has provided similar information in the form of affidavits, submitted to refute lawsuits alleging misconduct filed in Detroit.

Full Article: Detroit elections expert refutes allegations during Senate hearing

National: Scores of US poll workers tested positive for Covid over election period | Kira Lerner and Indrani Basu/The Guardian

On 5 November, two days after election day, an employee in the Onondaga county, New York, board of elections office went home early. She felt exhausted, according to the election commissioner Dustin Czarny, and assumed the long shifts were to blame. A week later she was hospitalized, tested for Covid-19, and learned she had contracted the virus. By then, unbeknown to the other employees, the virus had spread through the office where staff was working long shifts to count absentee ballots before New York’s certification deadline. Roughly 200 employees and volunteers who counted absentee ballots were sent home on 13 November and instructed to get tested. In total, 12 employees tested positive. “We had almost everybody in the office last week before Friday the 13th,” Czarny said. “Of course this all happened on Friday the 13th.” Czarny and the other commissioner closed the office and stopped vote counting for the week, informing New York they would miss the 28 November certification deadline. Czarny said the crisis is exactly what he’d hoped to avoid as they administered an election in the middle of a pandemic. “This is what we were fearing and it happened,” he said. For local election officials, the 2020 election was guaranteed to be a struggle. Record numbers of voters requested absentee ballots because of the Covid-19 pandemic, forcing election administrators to adapt to an unprecedented election. Officials had to hire additional staff, find warehouses and other locations to store ballots, and acquire protective equipment to ensure that their staff stayed healthy and safe. Despite their best efforts to stop the virus’s spread, several dozen poll workers and election officials across the country have tested positive for Covid-19, even as the link to election day in most cases is unclear. According to a Votebeat analysis of local reports, there were Covid-19 cases among election workers in at least nine counties in five states before election day, and at least 24 counties in 14 states reported positive cases among election workers in the days and weeks after.

Full Article: Scores of US poll workers tested positive for Covid over election period | US news | The Guardian

Michigan: Armed pro-Trump protesters gather outside Secretary of State’s home | Reuters

Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said dozens of armed protesters gathered in a threatening manner outside her home on Saturday evening chanting “bogus” claims about electoral fraud. Michigan officials last month certified the state’s election results showing President-elect Joe Biden had won Michigan, one of a handful of key battleground states, in the course of his 3 November election victory. Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed, contrary to evidence, that the outcome was marred by widespread fraud in multiple states. State and federal officials have repeatedly stated that there is no evidence of fraud on any significant scale, and Biden is to be sworn in on 20 January. The protesters who rallied outside Benson’s home held up placards saying “Stop the Steal” and chanted the same message, according to various clips uploaded on social media. In a Twitter statement on Sunday, Benson said the protesters were trying to spread false information about the security and accuracy of the US election system. “The demands made outside my home were unambiguous, loud and threatening.” The Michigan attorney general, Dana Nessel, in a separate Twitter post, accused the pro-Trump demonstrators of “mob-like behavior [that] is an affront to basic morality and decency”. “Anyone can air legitimate grievances to Secretary Benson’s office through civil and democratic means, but terrorizing children and families in their own homes is not activism.”

Full Article: Armed pro-Trump protesters gather outside Michigan elections chief’s home | Michigan | The Guardian

Michigan: Trump campaign appeals election case to state Supreme Court | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

President Donald Trump’s campaign went to the Michigan Supreme Court on Monday in connection with its earliest Michigan case challenging ballot counting in Detroit and elsewhere in the Nov. 3 election. “Unfortunately, some local election jurisdictions, including Wayne County, did not conduct the general election as required by Michigan law,” lawyers for the campaign said in a court filing. “And Secretary of State (Jocelyn) Benson did not require local election jurisdictions to allow challengers to meaningfully observe the conduct of the election and the tabulation and tallying of ballots.” Similar claims have been rejected by Michigan judges at both the state and federal levels and the specific claims in this case were rejected by Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens on Nov. 5 and by the Michigan Court of Appeals, in a 2-1 decision, on Friday. The Court of Appeals chastised the campaign for dragging its feet on the appeal, said the certification of Michigan’s election results by the Board of State Canvassers in the interim had made the lawsuit moot, and said that if the Trump campaign wanted to challenge the results it could have requested a recount, but did not. “Plaintiff failed to follow clear law in Michigan relative to such matters,” the court said. The campaign wanted an order directing Benson to require “meaningful access” for campaign poll watchers to the counting of state ballots, plus access to videotaped surveillance of ballot drop boxes installed around the state after Oct. 1. It had asked for a pause in ballot counting while the case was heard.

Full Article: Trump campaign appeals election case to Michigan Supreme Court

Michigan: Federal judge upholds election: ‘The people have spoken’ | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

A federal judge has rejected a last-minute push by Michigan Republicans who sought an emergency order to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state, saying the effort aimed to “ignore the will of millions of voters.” The suit seemed “less about achieving the relief” the GOP plaintiffs sought and “more about the impact of their allegations on people’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government,” wrote Detroit U.S. District Court Judge Linda Parker of Michigan’s Eastern District. “The People have spoken,” wrote Parker, who issued the ruling in the early morning hours of Monday, a week before the nation’s presidential electors will meet. Trump lost Michigan 51%-48% or by 154,000 votes to President-elect Joe Biden, and the Board of State Canvassers certified the tally on Nov. 23. On Nov. 25, six Michigan Republicans, represented by conservative attorney Sidney Powell, filed their lawsuit asking for “emergency relief,” including a court order requiring Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to sign off on certified election results that state “President Donald Trump is the winner of the election.” The suit also asked the federal judge to impound “all voting machines and software in Michigan for expert inspection.” The defendants in Powell’s suit are Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the Board of State Canvassers.

Full Article: Federal judge upholds Michigan election: ‘The people have spoken’

Michigan: Federal judge rejects GOP effort to overturn election results | Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein/Politico

A federal judge on Monday tore apart Republican efforts to overturn the election results in Michigan, calling the lawsuit itself — brought by President Donald Trump’s electors in the state — an apparent effort to damage democracy. “In fact, this lawsuit seems to be less about achieving the relief Plaintiffs seek — as much of that relief is beyond the power of this Court — and more about the impact of their allegations on People’s faith in the democratic process and their trust in our government,” said Judge Linda Parker, of the U.S. District Court of Eastern Michigan. Parker’s 35-page opinion, released after midnight Monday morning, found the legal argument of the Trump electors defective for multiple reasons, most notably that it was moot because the state had already certified President-elect Joe Biden’s win in the state, sending his electors to the Electoral College. She also found that the plaintiffs lacked standing to bring the suit, and brought it too late to be heard. But Parker was at her most forceful when she considered the GOP electors’ goal: reversing Michigan’s entire election, disenfranchising millions of voters and declaring Trump the winner. “With nothing but speculation and conjecture that votes for President Trump were destroyed, discarded or switched to votes for Vice President Biden, Plaintiffs’ equal protection claim fails,” Parker said.

Full Article: Federal judge rejects GOP effort to overturn Michigan election results – POLITICO

Michigan: Armed protesters rally outside Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home | Samuel Dodge/MLive.com

About 20-30 protesters, some open-carrying guns, gathered outside Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home Saturday night to challenge President-elect Joe Biden’s win in Michigan, police said. Officers responded to a public disturbance around 9:50 p.m., Dec. 5 outside of Benson’s Detroit residence, said the Michigan State Police. Some of the protesters carried weapons, police said, and the crowd dispersed once officers arrived. No protesters were arrested, police said. Detroit police were called to the scene, as well. Protesters posted two livestream videos of the rally, which showed people chanting for election audits and to “Stop the steal.” At least one individual shouted “you’re murderers” in the videos, according to a joint statement by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy. The rally was a threat against not only Benson and her family, but also Michigan voters, Benson said in a statement. “The demands made outside my home were unambiguous, loud and threatening,” she said in the release. “They targeted me in my role as Michigan’s Chief Election Officer. But the threats of those gathered weren’t actually aimed at me – or any other elected officials in this state. They were aimed at the voters.” She noted in the release that she and her 4-year-old son were decorating the house for Christmas when the protesters arrived.

Full Article: Armed protesters rally outside Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s home – mlive.com

Michigan Court of Appeals rejects another Trump lawsuit | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

he Michigan Court of Appeals on Friday rejected an appeal from the Trump presidential campaign challenging Michigan’s election results, in the latest in a series of court defeats for the president. In a 2-1 decision, the court chastised the campaign for dragging its feet on the appeal, said the certification of Michigan’s election results by the Board of State Canvassers in the interim had made the lawsuit moot, and said that if the Trump campaign wanted to challenge the results it could have requested a recount, but did not. “Plaintiff failed to follow clear law in Michigan relative to such matters,” the court said. Trump and his supporters have filed a series of lawsuits in battleground states around the country and in Michigan, where no judge has given credence to any of the claims. The ruling upholds an earlier decision by Michigan Court of Claims Judge Cynthia Stephens, who said Nov. 5 there was no legal basis or evidence to grant what the campaign requested in a suit filed the day after the Nov. 3 election. The Trump campaign tried to appeal that decision Nov. 6, but the “emergency” appeal was rejected because lawyers for the campaign did not file the required paperwork. They then did not correct the filing until Nov. 30. In the meantime, the Board of State Canvassers certified Michigan’s election results Nov. 23.

Full Article: Michigan Court of Appeals rejects another Trump lawsuit

Michigan: Trump attorney: ‘Our team’ examining Antrim voting equipment | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

President Donald Trump’s legal team is examining and taking images from 22 vote tabulators in Antrim County Sunday morning after a judge issued an order later Friday, a Trump attorney said. “A judge actually granted our team access … for us to conduct a forensic audit,” Trump attorney Jenna Ellis told Fox News on Sunday. Antrim County is solidly Republican but its unofficial results initially showed Democrat Joe Biden winning more votes on Nov. 3 than Trump did. The results were soon corrected and county and state officials have said the initial reporting inaccuracies were due to programming errors by the Republican clerk and not due to errors by the Dominion Voting Systems election equipment or related software. “That was an unexplained and so-called glitch,” said Ellis, an attorney who has been prominent in the Trump campaign’s efforts to overturn election results that show Biden won the presidency. “So our team is going to be able to go in there this morning and we’ll be there for about eight hours to conduct that forensic examination and we’ll have the results in about 48 hours and that will tell us a lot about these machines.”

Full Article: Trump attorney: ‘Our team’ examining Antrim voting equipment

Michigan: State elections director knocks down Trump claims about TCF, fraudulent vote count | Todd Spangler/Detroit Free Press

A top elections official for Michigan’s Secretary of State Office this week forcefully rebutted claims made by President Donald Trump and his allies that the Nov. 3 balloting was flawed, saying there is no evidence software changed votes and explaining that minor discrepancies in vote-counting at TCF Center in Detroit were far too small to change the outcome. In a sworn statement filed Wednesday in a lawsuit before U.S. District Judge Linda Parker, Jonathan Brater, the director of the state Bureau of Elections, said not only does the fact that Trump won more votes in Detroit in 2020 than he did in 2016 undermine Trump’s claims that the election was rigged or fraudulent but that discrepancies between the number of absentee ballots counted at TCF Center and the number of names of voters shown to have voted absentee was less than 150. About 174,000 absentee ballots from Detroit were tabulated at TCF on Nov. 3-4. President-elect Joe Biden beat Trump in the city by more than 200,000 votes and won statewide by more than 154,000 votes. “(The) various insinuations that large numbers of ballots were illegally counted or altered in Detroit are easily dismissed by a cursory review of election data,” Brater wrote in the affidavit, which is part of a lawsuit filed by attorney Sidney Powell asking that the results of the election awarding Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes to Biden be set aside.

Full Article: Donald Trump claims about Michigan election knocked down

Michigan hearings gave Trump campaign a venue to spread election misinformation | Malachi Barrett/MLive.com

Michigan legislative committees provided a platform this week for Trump supporters and the president’s personal lawyer to air unproven claims of election fraud and wild conspiracies that are now spreading across the internet. President Donald Trump directed millions of online viewers to a four-hour Wednesday night House Oversight Committee meeting attended by lawyer Rudy Giuliani and witnesses who shared testimony that has largely been disputed by Michigan election officials, judges and independent media reports. Giuliani claimed certified election results approved by bipartisan county boards and the Board of State Canvassers – which show Trump lost by 154,000 votes — “is a complete phony” and should be ignored by the Legislature. “It’s a false statement made to the United States government,” Giuliani said Wednesday. “Those are prosecutable, by the way. That’s not the vote by any means in Michigan. I don’t know what the vote in Michigan is, but it’s at least 300,000 or 400,000 votes off for what the real vote in Michigan is. You heard the anger and the upset of your citizens. They seem to have more passion about it than you do.” Giuliani’s count, which he did not substantiate, goes far beyond the number of votes experts say would be affected by unbalanced poll books. A miscount of 300,000 votes would be greater than all the votes cast in Detroit, a central area of focus in Trump’s fraud allegations. Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater has previously said there’s no evidence of such inaccuracies, other than “occasional human errors” experienced every election year. Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the Michigan Secretary of State, called Wednesday’s hearing a “sham” seeking to “erode the public’s confidence in what was a well-run election.”

Full Article: Michigan hearings gave Trump campaign a venue to spread election misinformation – mlive.com

Michigan: Trump, Giuliani continue to peddle baseless election conspiracies | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

In a longshot bid to overturn the results of the November election won by President-elect Joe Biden, President Donald Trump and his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani continued to peddle baseless conspiracy theories of election fraud Wednesday. In a speech Trump gave at the White House and remarks Giuliani made before the House Oversight Committee in Michigan, the two leveled a number of false allegations about absentee ballots counted in Detroit. The allegations have already been discredited by election officials and in court. But that didn’t stop Trump from falsely claiming that he won the election in Michigan when in fact he lost the state by more than 154,000 votes. Appearing before the oversight committee Wednesday evening, Giuliani, who is in charge of the Trump campaign’s election-related litigation, repeated wild claims that election software changed votes and that votes were counted overseas. He spent most of his time questioning people who said they witnessed election fraud at the TCF Center in Detroit, where Detroit election workers processed and counted absentee ballots cast by the city’s voters. Their allegations were already brought forward in a lawsuit whose account of the events that took place at the TCF Center was rejected as inaccurate and lacking credibility in court. The House committee launched a joint investigation with the Senate Oversight Committee into the November election the same day major television networks declared that Biden won the presidency.

Full Article: Trump, Giuliani continue to peddle baseless election conspiracies

Michigan hearing puts spotlight on unproven claims of election fraud | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Michigan lawmakers spent more than six hours Tuesday probing for evidence of wrongdoing in the presidential election as unproven claims of fraud flew from Republican poll challengers who monitored vote-counting in Democratic-heavy Detroit. With supporters of President Donald Trump chanting outside the meeting room’s windows, the Senate Oversight Committee provided the most visible platform yet in Michigan for Republicans who have raised concerns about the way the election was administered. The spotlight will continue Wednesday as the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, appears before the state House Oversight Committee. Trump tweeted several clips of Tuesday’s Michigan hearing as it continued. At one point, he posted, “Michigan voter fraud hearing going on now!” More than five hours into the meeting, Bill Schmidt of Livonia, who described himself as a lifelong Republican before this year’s election, said he served as a poll challenger at TCF Center, where Detroit’s absentee ballots were counted. Schmidt said he saw mistakes but not fraud. There was a lot of confusion at TCF Center, and people who were told there would be fraud occurring were predisposed to see it, he said. “Evil can be seen by evil people,” Schmidt said after he testified. “Good people see goodness. What I saw is, I saw hardworking people working hard,” he continued. “That’s what I saw. That’s America. That’s democracy.”

Full Article: Michigan hearing puts spotlight on unproven claims of election fraud

Michigan: Trump allies to judge: Force Governor to overturn election | Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

Allies of President Donald Trump want a federal court in Michigan to force state leaders to set aside election results and award its 16 electoral votes to the president. A separate conservative group also wants the Michigan Supreme Court to invalidate the results that show President-elect Joe Biden won the state. The latest lawsuit, filed in the Eastern District of Michigan and before the state’s highest court, rely on unfounded allegations of widespread fraud and misconduct that judges in the state and across the country have previously rejected. Neither has a high likelihood of success. There is no evidence of mass fraud or wrongdoing that affected election operations in Michigan or elsewhere. Biden earned roughly 154,000 more votes than Trump in Michigan. Last week, the Michigan Board of State Canvassers formally certified the results. But the federal lawsuit, filed by Trump-affiliated attorney Sidney Powell and a cadre of other lawyers, wants a judge to force Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to “decertify” those results. They want to act before Dec. 14, when the Electoral College is set to meet and Biden will receive the more than 270 votes needed to formally secure the presidency.

Full Article: Trump allies to Michigan judge: Force Whitmer to overturn election

 

Michigan: Suit asks Supreme Court to take custody of all election materials for investigation | Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

A conservative legal group has asked the Michigan Supreme Court to take custody of all Nov. 3 election materials to give the Michigan Legislature time to audit the results, investigate all claims of ballot irregularities and fraud, and “finish its constitutionally-mandated work to pick Michigan’s electors.” The lawsuit filed Thursday seeking the collection of ballots, pollbooks and ballot boxes also asks the court to stop the Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and the Board of State Canvassers from giving final certification to the state’s election results until a special master can be appointed to review alleged ballot irregularities and the legality of absentee ballots in Wayne County. It’s not likely the relief sought is possible given that state canvassers gave final certification Monday, though a lawyer for the Thomas More Society’s Amistad Project says he sent a letter to the canvassing board warning it not to certify.  The list of electors aligning with President-elect Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote win in Michigan was sent by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to the U.S. Secretary of State that same day. Likewise, the Michigan Legislature already is holding hearings to review complaints related to the Nov. 3 election and Benson has said she will audit results statewide and in Wayne County specifically.

Full Article: Suit asks Michigan’s high court to take custody of all ballots

 

The Inside Story of Michigan’s Fake Voter Fraud Scandal | Tim Alberta/Politico

After five years spent bullying the Republican Party into submission, President Donald Trump finally met his match in Aaron Van Langevelde. Who? That’s right. In the end, it wasn’t a senator or a judge or a general who stood up to the leader of the free world. There was no dramatic, made-for-Hollywood collision of cosmic egos. Rather, the death knell of Trump’s presidency was sounded by a baby-faced lawyer, looking over his glasses on a grainy Zoom feed on a gloomy Monday afternoon, reading from a statement that reflected a courage and moral clarity that has gone AWOL from his party, pleading with the tens of thousands of people watching online to understand that some lines can never be uncrossed. “We must not attempt to exercise power we simply don’t have,” declared Van Langevelde, a member of Michigan’s board of state canvassers, the ministerial body with sole authority to make official Joe Biden’s victory over Trump. “As John Adams once said, ‘We are a government of laws, not men.’ This board needs to adhere to that principle here today. This board must do its part to uphold the rule of law and comply with our legal duty to certify this election.” Van Langevelde is a Republican. He works for Republicans in the Statehouse. He gives legal guidance to advance Republican causes and win Republican campaigns. As a Republican, his mandate for Monday’s hearing—handed down from the state party chair, the national party chair and the president himself—was straightforward. They wanted Michigan’s board of canvassers to delay certification of Biden’s victory. Never mind that Trump lost by more than 154,000 votes, or that results were already certified in all 83 counties.

Full Article: The Inside Story of Michigan’s Fake Voter Fraud Scandal – POLITICO

Michigan Attorney General Investigating Threats Made Against Wayne County Election Officials | Brakkton Booker/NPR

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel confirmed Tuesday that her office is “actively investigating” threats against members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers. The announcement comes a day after state election officials voted to certify the election results, formally granting Michigan’s 16 electoral votes to President-elect Biden. President Trump has for weeks sought to overturn Biden’s victory there and in the election overall, without gaining traction. “We will investigate any credible complaints of threats to government officials, elected or appointed, and will prosecute criminal conduct to the fullest extent of the law,” Nessel said in a statement. “Serving the people – regardless of party – is an honorable but sometimes difficult and thankless task. And while many of us have been subjected to hateful and often obscene insults, threats of violence and harm will not be tolerated,” she added. Her office’s Criminal Investigations Division initiated its probe after the county’s Board of Canvassers meeting earlier this month. Nessel is asking that adding that anyone with a specific complaint about election fraud, threats against public officials or misinformation contact her office.

Full Article: Michigan AG Investigating Threats Made Against Wayne County Election Officials : Biden Transition Updates : NPR

Michigan: With the world watching, a Republican state canvasser helps make Biden’s win official | Lauren Gibbons/MLive

For a few hours Monday, tens of thousands of people were glued to their phones and computer screens watching an appointed board in Michigan make the state’s Nov. 3 election results official. Election certification by the Michigan Board of State Canvassers is typically viewed as a procedural step, a final check on results canvassed and certified by election officials in each of the state’s 83 counties. But in an election cycle where the sitting president has refused to concede the election and continues to push debunked claims of widespread voter fraud, every aspect of the post-election process has been unconventional. After hours of public comment, the board voted 3-0-1 to certify results that showed President-elect Joe Biden, a Democrat, defeated incumbent Republican President Donald Trump in Michigan, despite a concerted effort by the Michigan Republican Party, the John James campaign and other Trump supporters to delay certification. Because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, members of the board were in the same room, but public viewing was virtual. At one point, more than 35,000 people were watching on the Secretary of State’s Youtube page, and more than 500 people initially submitted requests to address the board. That’s a much larger audience than a state canvassers meeting typically gets. Although some issues under the board’s purview, such as considering whether a citizen-led policy initiative or the recall of a public official makes the ballot, get more attention, even the most crowded canvassers hearings prior to Monday’s meeting have attracted less than a few hundred people.

Full Article: With the world watching, a Republican state canvasser helps make Biden’s win in Michigan official – mlive.com

Michigan: Detroit had more vote errors in 2016 when Trump won the state by a narrow margin. He didn’t object then. | Kayla Ruble/The Washington Post

Republican Party leaders who urged Michigan’s state canvassing board to hold off certifying the Nov. 3 election results before it met Monday cited what they described as “significant problems and irregularities” in Wayne County, home of Detroit. The GOP officials pointed to the number of “unbalanced” precincts, where there were small discrepancies between the number of ballots cast and the number of voters logged by election workers in the poll books. Party officials unsuccessfully called on the board to conduct an audit before it certified President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the state with a 3-to-1 vote. “To simply gloss over those irregularities now without a thorough audit would only foster feelings of distrust among Michigan’s electorate,” Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and state GOP Chair Laura Cox wrote in a letter Saturday. But state and county election data shows that four years ago — when Donald Trump carried the state by a much narrower margin — twice as many Detroit precincts were out of balance. At the time, the problems were widely condemned by Democratic leaders, including Garlin Gilchrist, now the state’s lieutenant governor, who called the city’s handling of the election “a complete catastrophe.”

Full Article: Detroit had more vote errors in 2016 when Trump won Michigan by a narrow margin. He didn’t object then. – The Washington Post

Michigan Supreme Court rejects appeal, but 2 justices urge looking into election fraud claims | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

In what is likely a final blow to the effort to delay the certification of election results in Michigan, the Michigan Supreme Court on Monday rejected an appeal in a lawsuit filed against Detroit and Wayne County election officials. With all but Justice David Viviano agreeing, the court denied the request to stop the certification of Wayne County’s election results, writing in its order  “we are not persuaded that the question presented should be reviewed by this Court.” The Wayne County Board of Canvassers certified the county’s results Nov. 17. But in a concurring statement to the court’s order, Justice Brian Zahra, joined by Justice Stephen Markman, urged the Wayne County Circuit Court to move quickly and “meaningfully assess” the plaintiffs’ allegations of electoral fraud. “I am cognizant that many Americans believe that plaintiffs’ claims of electoral fraud and misconduct are frivolous and obstructive, but I am equally cognizant that many Americans are of the view that the 2020 election was not fully free and fair,” Zahra wrote. “Federal law imposes tight time restrictions on Michigan’s certification of our electors. Plaintiffs should not have to file appeals following our standard processes and procedures to obtain a final answer from this Court on such weighty issues.” The concurring statement called on the Wayne County Circuit Court to hold an evidentiary hearing to assess the credibility of the plaintiffs’ allegations of fraud based mostly on affidavits filed by Republican challengers present at TCF Center.

Full Article: 2 Mich. Supreme Court justices urge looking into election fraud claims

Michigan: What We Know About a Suddenly Important State Elections Board | Kathleen Gray/The New York Times

The work of the Michigan Board of State Canvassers is not glamorous and rarely draws much attention. Its members handle matters like reviewing petition signatures and helping local clerks find voting machines. But on Monday, the national spotlight will fall on one of the board’s normally mundane tasks: reviewing results from the presidential election that have been certified by Michigan’s 83 counties and giving a stamp of approval. The winner is clear. Joseph R. Biden Jr. beat President Trump in the state by over 150,000 votes, according to the Michigan Bureau of Elections. But Mr. Trump and his Republican allies are trying to upend that reality by urging the board to refuse to certify the election results. They have made baseless claims about discrepancies in the vote tallies, especially in Wayne County, which includes Detroit and is predominantly Black, and have argued that an investigation should be carried out before the state’s 16 electoral votes are awarded to Mr. Biden. Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said on Sunday that state law dictated that no audit or investigation could be done until the election was certified, because state elections officials cannot legally gain access to poll books or ballot boxes before then. The Board of State Canvassers, which will meet at 1 p.m. Eastern on Monday, includes two Republicans and two Democrats. While election law experts say the certification vote is a strictly ministerial duty that the board members are obligated to fulfill, political operatives in Michigan are preparing for a chain of events in which the two Republicans on the board follow the Trump campaign’s wishes. A 2-to-2 deadlock, which would prolong Republicans’ unprecedented attempts to overturn this year’s presidential race, would most likely prompt Democrats to ask the state Court of Appeals to order the board to do its constitutional duty and certify the election results.

Full Article: What We Know About a Suddenly Important Michigan Elections Board – The New York Times

Michigan House speaker floats possibility of ‘constitutional crisis’ | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield referenced the possibility of a “constitutional crisis” during an interview on Fox News Sunday morning, two days after he huddled with President Donald Trump at the White House. The Board of State Canvassers meets Monday to consider certifying Michigan’s statewide election results, including President-elect Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory. But top Republican Party leaders have asked the board to delay certification in a bid to investigate “anomalies and irregularities” they claim occurred on Nov. 3. The board features two Republicans and two Democrats. Many legal experts believe the panel has a duty, under Michigan law, to certify the results Monday. “If there were to be a 2-2 split on the State Board of Canvassers, it would then go to the Michigan Supreme Court to determine what their response would be, what their order would be,” Chatfield, R-Levering said on “Fox & Friends” Sunday. “If they didn’t have an order that it be certified, well now we have a constitutional crisis in the state of Michigan. It’s never occurred before.” Chatfield made the comment in response to a question about what would happen if the board divided along party lines. The top lawmaker in the GOP-controlled House said the Legislature decided “long ago” to have the certification process run through the state board.

Full Article: Michigan House speaker floats possibility of ‘constitutional crisis’