Michigan: Unplugging voting machines is illegal. Clerks say GOP candidate is promoting election crime. | Malachi Barrett/MLive.com

Unplugging a voting machine is unlikely to do anything more than land you in jail. At a Jan. 26 event in Macomb County, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley encouraged poll workers to unplug election equipment if they suspect something suspicious is occurring. Kelley gave the same advice to a group in Livingston County three days later, urging the crowd to unplug voting machines “if you see something you don’t like happening.” Interfering with a voting device is illegal. It’s also not likely to have any impact on election results. Voting tabulators have backup batteries that can provide power for hours in case of electrical outages. Paper ballots are later tabulated by local canvassing boards anyway, so shutting down machines used to automate the process on election day wouldn’t affect results. “It’s just unfortunate that people who are aspiring to be public servants are encouraging that kind of stuff,” said Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini. “We all want to uphold the law, we all want to be stewards of society as a whole and do the right thing. Maybe these people are thinking that is the right thing, but it’s not.”

Full Article: Unplugging voting machines is illegal. Clerks say GOP candidate is promoting election crime. – mlive.com

Michigan: Giuliani asked prosecutor to give voting machines to Trump team | Jon Swaine, Emma Brown and Jacqueline Alemany/The Washington Post

In the weeks after the 2020 election, Rudolph W. Giuliani and other legal advisers to President Donald Trump asked a Republican prosecutor in northern Michigan to get his county’s voting machines and pass them to Trump’s team, the prosecutor told The Washington Post. Antrim County prosecutor James Rossiter said in an interview that Giuliani and several colleagues made the request during a telephone call after the county initially misreported its election results. The inaccurate tallies meant that Joe Biden appeared to have beaten Trump by 3,000 votes in a Republican stronghold, an error that soon placed Antrim at the center of false claims by Trump that the election had been stolen. Rossiter said he declined. “I said, ‘I can’t just say: give them here.’ We don’t have that magical power to just demand things as prosecutors. You need probable cause.” Even if he had had sufficient grounds to take the machines as evidence, Rossiter said, he could not have released them to outsiders or a party with an interest in the matter. Legal scholars said it was unusual and inappropriate for a president’s representatives to make such a request of a local prosecutor. “I never expected in my life I’d get a call like this,” Rossiter said. Giuliani declined to comment in response to questions from The Post, his attorney said. Giuliani’s team called Rossiter around Nov. 20, 2020, Rossiter said, as it worked to overturn Trump’s defeat to Biden. The direct appeal to a local law enforcement official was part of a broader effort by Trump’s allies to access voting machines in an attempt to prove that the election had been stolen. That effort extended to a recently disclosed draft executive order for Trump’s signature to have National Guard troops seize machines across the nation.

Full Article: Giuliani asked Michigan prosecutor to give voting machines to Trump team – The Washington Post

Michigan: ‘Show up armed’ to protect election observers, State Senate candidate suggests | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Republican Mike Detmer, a candidate for the Michigan state Senate, told a crowd Saturday that people should “show up armed” to protect Republican election observers’ access to monitor the counting of ballots. In response Monday evening, Michigan’s top election official, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, said she had referred Detmer’s comments and additional remarks from Republican gubernatorial candidate Ryan Kelley to Attorney General Dana Nessel. In a statement, Benson said voter intimidation by brandishing a firearm at a polling place is illegal. Detmer made the comment at an event in Livingston County, according to a video posted by Kelley’s gubernatorial campaign. A person in the crowd had asked the two candidates what can be done to “protect people” to prevent what happened at the TCF Center, where Detroit’s absentee ballots were counted after the November 2020 presidential election. The unidentified individual suggested Republican observers had been “pushed” out of the room and police “manhandled” people. Election officials have said they allowed the maximum number of poll watchers, only restricting access to any additional observers because of COVID-19 concerns.

Full Article: ‘Show up armed’ to protect election observers, Michigan candidate suggests

Michigan: New GOP canvassers who embrace election myths raise prospect of chaotic certification | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

In counties across Michigan, the GOP is filling election canvassing boards responsible for tallying the vote count with people who have embraced falsehoods and misinformation about fraud in the 2020 election. The bipartisan boards have the routine task of double checking the vote totals submitted by municipalities and signing off on the county-level results before turning them over to the state board to certify statewide contests, as well as those that cross county lines. But the appointment of several GOP canvassers who still question Joe Biden’s victory over Donald Trump in 2020 raises the risk that these boards could become a partisan bottleneck in the effort to certify the results of future elections. In Wayne County, home to the largest number of Michigan voters, the GOP nominated Robert Boyd to the canvassing board. Boyd has called the results of the 2020 presidential election “inaccurate” and has said he would not have approved the county results. In Antrim County, the site of a brief tallying error on election night that fed fanciful conspiracy theories about vote manipulation, Marvin Rubingh is now on the board as GOP canvasser. Rubingh has called former President Donald Trump’s false and widely debunked claims that the election was stolen “a credible accusation.”

Full Article: PolitiFact | New GOP canvassers in Michigan who embrace election myths raise prospect of chaotic certification

Michigan: ‘Forensic audit’ in largest pro-Trump county finds no evidence of election interference | Malachi Barrett/Mlive

A “forensic audit” of election equipment in the largest Michigan county won by former President Donald Trump found no evidence of outside interference in the 2020 election. Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini released the results of an independent investigation into the county’s voting software on Jan. 5, a day before the one-year anniversary of a riot in Washington, D.C. aimed at overturning the 2020 election. Michigan Republicans waged an unsuccessful year-long campaign to compel similar a “forensic audit” of the statewide election based on unproven allegations of interference in voting machines. “I’m very comfortable saying that the software and the tabulators work the way they were supposed to,” Forlini said. The Macomb County audit found no evidence of “malicious internet connectivity,” no evidence of file manipulation and no evidence of unauthorized software in the county’s election servers. Forlini said the audit disproved a popular theory that election machines could be tampered with through the internet. Forlini was elected in 2020 and said he immediately faced questions about election fraud after he took office in January 2021. Forlini said he sought the audit to answer those questions since he did not administer the 2020 election personally. “There is no agenda in my head up front, and I think that’s important because some people have agendas,” Forlini said. “I had no agenda, other than the truth.”

Full Article: ‘Forensic audit’ in Michigan’s largest pro-Trump county finds no evidence of election interference – mlive.com

Michigan: Antrim County Tied to Election Fraud Claim Strategy | Mardi Link/The Traverse City Record-Eagle

Documents provided to a congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol show misinformation about Antrim County’s election was part of a coordinated, nationwide strategy aimed at certifying the 2020 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump.
A “Strategic Communications Plan” of the “Giuliani Presidential Legal Defense Team,” which includes the former president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, references debunked claims about Antrim County’s voting equipment as part of an effort to put pressure on Republican senators in six states — including Michigan — between Dec. 27, 2020 and Jan. 6, 2021, the Plan states. The other states listed are Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, records show. The 22-page Communications Plan was provided Dec. 31 to members of the Select Committee to Investigate the Jan. 6 Attack on the United States Capitol, by an investigator hired by Trump’s post-election legal team. The release was in response to a Nov. 5 subpoena, records show. Bernard Kerik is a former New York City Police commissioner who, his attorney said in a Dec. 31 letter to the committee, was hired by Trump’s legal team as an investigator tasked with looking into claims of election fraud.

Full Article: Antrim County, Mich., Tied to Election Fraud Claim Strategy

Michigan: Trump backers want audit of 2020 vote funded by anonymous donors | Jonathan Oosting/Bridge Michigan

A petition drive to require a “forensic audit” of Michigan’s 2020 presidential election would guarantee anonymity to private backers who would pay for the multi-million dollar review, according to language filed Tuesday. Organizer John Rocha, a Republican state House candidate endorsed by former President Donald Trump,  told Bridge Michigan the proposed audit process would be transparent, but he argued funders should be allowed to remain private to prevent backlash. “A lot of people have been getting shamed and doxxed” for political activities and beliefs, Rocha said before a small rally at the Michigan Capitol. “We don’t want that for people who are willing to support this.” The audit proposal, which organizers hope to put before voters in 2022, is the latest in a series of attempts by Trump loyalists to challenge the 2020 contest, which the former president continues to claim was rigged despite local audits and a GOP-led oversight investigation that found no evidence of fraud. The petition proposes creating a 16-member audit board, composed of political precinct delegates, that would raise money to hire private contractors to conduct another review of Michigan’s 2020 election, which Democratic President Joe Biden won by 154,188 votes. 

Full Article: Trump backers want audit of 2020 Michigan vote funded by anonymous donors | Bridge Michigan

How a Michigan Clerk Got Embroiled in Trump’s Attempt to Overturn the Election | Mark -Bowden and Matthew Teague/Time

Antrim County, Michigan, seemed an unlikely setting for the attempted overthrow of an American election. In the mitten shape of the state’s lower peninsula, Antrim makes up a fingertip in the far north. It sits on the eastern side of Grand Traverse Bay, which took its name from French voyagers who in the eighteenth century paddled canoes across its lonesome width: la grand traverse, they called it. About twenty-three thousand people live in Antrim. Many work in fruit production, including the cherry farms that make the region the “cherry capital of the world.” They grow sweet cherries and sour: Montmorency cherries, Balaton tart cherries. Cavaliers, Sams, Emperor Francises, Golds, and a particular local favorite, Ulsters. In spring, those cherry trees cover the landscape with pink and white blossoms. And the county features what people here call the chain of lakes, a series of fourteen terraced lakes and rivers starting with Beals Lake at the top and finally flowing into the Grand Traverse. The largest and deepest body in the chain is Torch Lake, where long ago Native Americans fished by torchlight. Today Antrim’s residents sail their boats up and down its length on turquoise waters. So Antrim County sits on a peninsular outcrop, its people are few and scattered, and its landscape is sublime. All of which makes it seem outlandish as the stage for what followed: private jets arriving in the night, intrigue, threats of violence, and an effort to subvert the will of the American people.

Full Article: How a Michigan Clerk Got Embroiled in Trump’s Attempt to Overturn the Election | Time

Michigan: Proposed ban on use of donated space as polling places is questioned | David Eggert/Associated Press

Clerks and other opponents of a ballot initiative that would toughen Michigan’s voting rules raised concerns Wednesday about its proposed ban on using donated spaces as polling places, saying churches and religious organizations account for 20% of them. Progress Michigan, a liberal advocacy group that compiled the information, said 664 of 3,355 polling places in the 2020 election were churches, places of worship or similar religious spaces. “There’s a growing panic about the implications,” said Mary Clark, president of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks and the clerk in Delta Township, located near Lansing. “Whether they’re intended or unintended consequences is irrelevant. They’re consequences to voters. … The ban on any in-kind contribution would be devastating.” She said the township of 33,000 residents has 16 precincts. Twelve are located in 10 places of worship. Paying “going market rate, for me, adds up to a lot of money,” Clark said. “It’s quite unsettling.” Republicans launched the ballot drive in late August to sidestep Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who vetoed similar legislation two months later. The GOP-controlled Legislature is expected to pass the Secure MI Vote initiative if enough voter signatures are collected.

Full Article: Ban on use of donated space as polling places is questioned

Michigan: Adams Township residents have mixed feelings on clerk issues | Corey Murray/Hillsdale Daily News

Adams Township residents expressed mixed feelings on the ongoing saga between Township Clerk Stephanie Scott and Michigan’s Secretary of State during their regularly scheduled business meeting Nov. 7.  The meeting was well attended and the first held since issues between the S.O.S. and Scott intensified throughout October culminating in a search warrant being executed by the Michigan State Police to recover a missing piece of election equipment days before the Nov. 2 special election where a school renewal operating millage was voted on.  Adams Township Supervisor introduced the topic almost an hour into the meeting and said Scott herself may or may not answer questions as she is currently consulting with an attorney she has hired to represent her in the matters. Scott was stripped of her official election duties in late October after expressing concerns with voting integrity Oct. 11 and calling into question the accuracy of voting equipment. The S.O.S. in a news release alleged that Scott failed to agree to comply with scheduling a public accuracy test prior to the Nov. 2 election. Nichols explained the timeline of events to over 30 members of the community in attendance, with about half living in Adams Township and others from Hillsdale County concerned with election integrity.

Full Article: Adams Township residents have mixed feelings on clerk issues

Michigan GOP’s latest vote-crushing scheme could eliminate 20% of polling sites | Igor Derysh/Salon

A controversial scheme by Michigan Republicans to circumvent Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s veto of their proposed voting restrictions could eliminate one in every five polling sites in the state, according to a new study. The head of the Michigan Republican Party is funding the “Secure MI Vote” petition, which includes a ban on in-kind contributions to local election clerks. Organizers have acknowledged that this provision would in fact end the use of donated polling sites, such as churches. Some cities and townships could lose half their polling sites — or in some cases all of them — under the new restrictions, according to a new report from the liberal advocacy group Progress Michigan. “I hope people are able to see the danger and the impact of this proposal,” Mary Clark, president of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks and Delta Township clerk, said in a statement. “This is the type of policy that causes me to lay awake at night because it will cause so much confusion amongst voters and put clerks in impossible situations. This would absolutely negatively impact legally registered voters in my jurisdiction and every jurisdiction in this state.” Michigan Republicans, who introduced a 39-bill package to change the state’s voting laws in the wake of Donald Trump’s defeat, in September launched an effort to pull an end-around on Whitmer’s veto of their proposed voting laws by introducing a ballot petition — one that voters will never get to see. An unusual quirk in the state’s constitution allows the Republican-dominated state legislature to adopt the initiative rather than put it on the ballot if they collect just 340,047 signatures, or 8% of the number of voters who participated in the last gubernatorial election. Whitmer has no power to veto such an initiative if it is passed by the legislature.

Full Article: Michigan GOP’s latest vote-crushing scheme could eliminate 20% of polling sites | Salon.com

Michigan GOP voting initiative would eliminate 20% of polling places, creating ‘panic’ among clerks, study says | Steve Neavling/Detroit Metro Times

A controversial, Republican-led petition drive to restrict voting access would eliminate 20% of all polling locations, a new report found. The Secure MI Vote petition would ban clerks from accepting donated spaces such as churches, schools, and senior centers for polling locations. In Michigan, one of every five polling locations is a church, according to Secure MI Vote: Creating Insecurity for Community Polling Places, a study by Progress Michigan, a progressive nonprofit that advocates for voting rights. “This ban on donated polling locations will cause confusion and disruption for voters, leading to voter disenfranchisement, create challenges for clerks, who would have to find new polling locations or reduce the number of polling locations available, and would increase costs for election administration,” Sam Inglot, deputy director of Progress Michigan, said Wednesday. The study found that nearly half of the counties in Michigan use at least one church or other place of worship as a polling location, and churches account for all of the polling places in 28 cities and townships. In 11 cities and townships, places of worship account for at least 50% of polling locations. In some rural townships, including Hazelton in Shiawassee County and Mussey Township in St. Clair County, the only polling location is a church. In Wayne County, 109 of the 471 polling locations are inside a church or other place of worship, the most in the state.

Full Article: Michigan GOP voting initiative would eliminate 20% of polling places, creating ‘panic’ among clerks, study says | News Hits

Michigan town deep in Trump country mistrusts all elections, except its own | Jonathan Oosting/Bridge Michigan

Julie Shaffer showed her ID, sat between privacy dividers, used an ink pen to fill out her ballot and fed it into a tabulator that responded with an electronic ding to indicate her vote had been counted. Then she stepped outside and declared elections are rigged. “They’re crooked — our government, our voting system — and I’m not really in favor of all the bullshit,” Shaffer said Tuesday outside Adams Township Hall, which is sandwiched between a cemetery and a privately-owned barn surrounded by high fences, Confederate flags and no trespassing signs. “A lot of it I got off YouTube,” Shaffer said, describing her online research into the 2020 election. “I was looking for Jeff Epstein, and then I hit on all this other stuff, and I’m going like, ‘Yeah, our government’s corrupt. Our country’s corrupt.’ ” Election conspiracy theories have gripped this small town in Hillsdale County that is home to about 2,450 people and no traffic lights. More than 76 percent of local voters backed former President Donald Trump in 2020, and one year later, many continue to believe the election was rigged against him.

Full Article: Deep in Trump country, a Michigan town mistrusts all elections, except its own | Bridge Michigan

Baseless fraud claims are hurting election security in this Michigan town | Joseph Marks/The Washington Post

A second local election official who parroted former president Donald Trump’s baseless election fraud claims is now under police investigation for how she handled voting equipment. Stephanie Scott (R), clerk of tiny Adams Township in Michigan, potentially made her township’s election equipment more vulnerable to hacking when she allegedly removed a tablet from an election machine that counts votes from paper ballots and may have tampered with it before police recovered it, the Associated Press reported. Whaaaat? A few days earlier, state officials barred Scott from running her township’s elections after she resisted signing off on state-required logic and accuracy testing for election equipment. Scott has echoed conspiracy theories from Trump, saying she doesn’t trust the election equipment and suggested the testing may have been cover for state officials to rig vote tabulators.  “The county clerk’s office and now Secretary of State are demanding I drop off my machine for unfettered access, and God only knows doing what to it,” she told the nonprofit news organization Michigan Bridge. “When you have the fox guarding the hen house, somebody’s got to stand up and guard those hens.” Scott also blocked a contractor from performing preventive maintenance on voting equipment.  Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) ordered the clerk in neighboring Hillsdale County to supervise Adams Township elections after Scott was stripped of the responsibility. 

Full Article: Baseless fraud claims are hurting election security in this Michigan town – The Washington Post

Michigan: Missing Hillsdale County voting equipment found, state checking whether tampering occurred | John Tunison/MLlive.com

Authorities have recovered voting equipment that went missing after a rural township clerk in Hillsdale County was barred from administering next week’s Nov. 2 election. Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott refused to allow legally-required maintenance and accuracy testing on voting machines, leading to the ruling about the upcoming election, state officials said. Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast has said she suspected Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott was in possession of a “tablet” that contained sensitive election information. Kast said Scott did not turn over the tablet, described as the “brains” of the voting machine, and that Scott said she was “consulting her attorney” when asked to relinquish it. On social media, Scott has promoted election conspiracy theories. In a release issued late in the day Friday, Oct. 29 by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office, officials said state police recovered the missing election equipment from the Adams Township Hall earlier in the day. It wasn’t immediately clear if the equipment was at the township hall all along, or somewhere else. Tracy Wimmer, a Secretary of State spokesperson, said an investigation is ongoing as to whether the equipment shows any tampering. She sad the matter is “currently the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation” and she planned no further comment about specific details of the investigation.

Full Article: Missing Hillsdale County voting equipment found, state checking whether tampering occurred – mlive.com

Michigan voting machine missing after clerk stripped of election power | Jonathan Oosting/Bridge Michigan

Michigan State Police launched a criminal investigation Thursday after election equipment at the center of a voting tabulator conspiracy theory went missing this week in a rural, conservative community. Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, a Republican whose social media has included QAnon memes, had refused to allow a vendor to conduct routine maintenance on a Hart Intercivic Inc. voting machine. Hillsdale County Clerk Marney Kast, a fellow Republican who the state tasked with running the local election instead of Scott, told Bridge Michigan her office attempted to retrieve the Adams Township equipment earlier this week but was unable to locate the tablet, which she described as the “brains” of the machine. “I don’t know where it’s at or if it’s been tampered with,” Kast said. Scott, the Adams Township clerk, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Thursday from Bridge. In a rare move, the Michigan Bureau of Elections this week stripped Scott of her election administration authority, accusing the first-term clerk of refusing to fulfill her “legal responsibilities” and spreading misinformation about the tabulators used in Hillsdale County.

Full Article: Voting machine missing after Michigan clerk stripped of election power | Bridge Michigan

Michigan clerk banned from running Nov. 2 election over tabulator concerns | Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

The Michigan Bureau of Elections has prohibited a local clerk in Hillsdale County from administering next week’s election after the bureau said the clerk failed to comply with state requirements regarding voting equipment in Adams Township. Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott denied the allegations and is exploring her options with outside counsel after the bureau’s notice said a violation of the prohibition could result in a misdemeanor. “As a supervisor, I don’t know that she does have the authority given that it’s an elected position,” Scott, the first-term clerk, said about Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. Benson in a Monday statement said Adams Township voters deserve an election administered in accordance with state and federal laws. “I am confident that the Hillsdale County Clerk’s Office will administer the election in a manner that ensures that it is legal, transparent and secure,” she said. Scott refused to perform preventive maintenance or perform and sign off on public accuracy testing on township voting equipment, according to the Michigan Bureau of Elections. She also is alleged to have failed to confirm that she would use certified Hart Intercivic Inc. voting equipment, the township’s current vendor, for future elections.

Full Article: Elections bureau bans clerk from running Nov. 2 election over tabulator concerns

Michigan Republicans replace local election officials in ‘unprecedented’ trend | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Republican Party leaders across the battleground state of Michigan have quietly worked in recent weeks to replace incumbent county election officials with newcomers, some of whom have sought to undermine the public’s faith in the 2020 vote. The trend focuses on four-member county canvassing boards, the bipartisan panels in charge of verifying records and importantly, certifying results. It comes in the midst of an internal party struggle over whether to accept Democratic President Joe Biden’s win last year.  On Nov. 1, two members of each board — one Republican and one Democrat —  will begin new four-year terms. Out of Michigan’s 11 largest counties, Republicans have nominated new individuals for the positions in eight, according to a Detroit News investigation. In at least four of the counties — 36%— the incumbent GOP canvasser wanted to be renominated but wasn’t. Democrats are concerned that the new canvassers, spurred by former President Donald Trump, will refuse to approve future results or use their positions to interfere in the process. Mark Brewer, former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party and an elections attorney, labeled the unfolding situation in the state “unprecedented.”

Full Article: Michigan GOP removes election officials in ‘unprecedented’ trend

Michigan judge denies Secretary of State Benson’s motion in dismissed Antrim County election lawsuit | Mardi Link/Traverse City Record-Eagle

A judge denied a motion from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson seeking to lift a stay order in a dismissed Antrim County election-related lawsuit to assess whether court-protected images from Antrim County’s voting equipment were shared during a “cyber symposium” hosted by Donald Trump supporter and My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell. A data security expert, Harri Hursti, said in a declaration included with Benson’s motion, he attended the August event where a link to download an image which appeared to have originated from Antrim County was shared on social media by one of the event’s speakers — CodeMonkeyZ — who has nearly 400,000 followers. A December court order signed by 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer allowed for a forensic examination of the county’s voting equipment after a local man, Bill Bailey, filed a lawsuit. But the judge’s decision to allow access to voting equipment also placed controls on what could be released to the public. Elsenheimer, responding to Benson’s motion, said that Bailey’s lawsuit — dismissed in May — had been referred to the Michigan Court of Appeals and until that court decided whether to hear the case, he was denying the motion.

Full Article: Judge denies Secretary of State Benson’s motion in dismissed Antrim election lawsuit | Local News | record-eagle.com

Michigan: Macomb County clerk pursues forensic audit of election server | Carol Thompson/The Detroit News

Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini said Tuesday he plans to hire a cyber security firm to conduct a forensic audit of the county’s election server to “restore the confidence of our election processes in Macomb County.” “I cannot say with certainty whether or not we will find something from the past, but I can say that Macomb will lead the state in election integrity in the future,” Forlini said in a statement. “We are in the process of establishing best election practices that we will continually look at and modify as laws and technology change.” Former President Donald Trump beat Democrat Joe Biden 53%-45% in Macomb County last year, the second consecutive time the Republican won the county. But Biden won the state by about 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, and Trump has made unsubstantiated claims fraud cost him the election. Forlini said he has no reason to doubt the results in Macomb County. The audit will build public confidence in the local election system and assuage some residents’ fears about outsiders’ ability to interfere in the results, he said. “I’m trying to establish all the best practices for good, clean elections,” Forlini told The Detroit News. “Not to say they weren’t clean before; I’m not trying to allude to that. I’m trying to say that I want to be able to answer in the affirmative that, from a technology standpoint, we have clean elections.”

Full Article: Macomb County clerk pursues forensic audit of election server

Michigan Poll Challengers Are Suing Dominion With Dershowitz’s Help | Madison Hall/Business Insider

A group of eight Michigan poll challengers is suing Dominion Voting Systems after the company sent them cease and desist letters. First reported by The Daily Beast, the group is being led by a former “Stop the Steal” attorney, Kurt Olsen, who attempted to convince the US Department of Justice to file a lawsuit regarding the 2020 election to the Supreme Court as part of an effort to undermine President Joe Biden’s electoral victory. Famed Democratic attorney and former lawyer for President Donald Trump, Alan Dershowitz, is also a part of the group’s counsel. He told The Daily Beast he’s an “adviser and consultant on the First Amendment issues of this case.” The state of Michigan allows for interest groups and political parties to appoint “election challengers” to challenge a voter’s eligibility or an election inspector’s actions.  Eight of the state’s challengers from the 2020 presidential election said they received cease and desist letters from Dominion after they inquired about potential irregularities in the election despite never mentioning Dominion in their formal challenges.

Full Article: Michigan Poll Challengers Are Suing Dominion With Dershowitz’s Help

Split Michigan Legislature Approves Election-Related Bills | Michigan News | David Eggert/Associated Press

The Michigan Legislature on Thursday passed election bills that would limit who can access the state voter file, keep voting equipment from being connected to the internet and require election challengers to receive training. The legislation sent to Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was supported by majority Republicans and opposed by all but one Senate Democrat and many House Democrats. The bills blocking outside groups’ access to the voter database and prohibiting the connection of electronic pollbooks or voting systems to the internet would codify existing practice. “It’s a good idea to take this bill and take the best practices and put them into law so they can’t be changed,” Sen. Ruth Johnson, a Holly Republican and former secretary of state, said of the internet-connection legislation.

Full Article: Split Michigan Legislature Approves Election-Related Bills | Michigan News | US News

Michigan: GOP to massively step up 2022 poll watching, Mackinac conference told | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

The GOP will massively increase its poll watching and election litigation efforts in 2022 and beyond after so far failing to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election through a series of lawsuits and audits, a top Republican National Committee official said Friday. Josh Findlay, election integrity director for the RNC, said one problem with GOP operations in 2020 was that attorneys for former President Donald Trump and other conservative groups went to court too late. Going to court on Election Day is “not going to be effective,” Findlay told attendees at the Mackinac Republican Leadership Conference, held every other year on the northern Michigan island that can only be reached by ferry or private plane, and where motorized vehicles are generally banned. Findlay acknowledged another problem — one that both nonpartisan judges and Democrats said in response to allegations of voter fraud and irregularities put forward by Republican poll watchers in Detroit. There, large numbers of volunteers were recruited by the GOP, in many cases at the last minute, to go to the TCF Center in Detroit while absentee ballots were being counted after the Nov. 3 vote.

Full Article: GOP to massively step up 2022 poll watching, Mackinac conference told

Michigan, Detroit seek $204K for fighting election lawsuit | Sara Powers/Assocaited Press

Attorneys are seeking $204,000 in fees for successfully defending Detroit and Michigan from a post-election lawsuit filed by lawyers aligned with former President Donald Trump. The tally filed Wednesday came two weeks after a judge said the lawyers, including Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, would pay a penalty for pursuing the case. The final figure will be determined later. Trump voters filed a lawsuit in November after Michigan’s vote in favor of Joe Biden was certified. They alleged fraud and wanted voting machines impounded. U.S. District Judge Linda Parker said the lawsuit was a sham. “Individuals may have a right — within certain bounds — to disseminate allegations of fraud unsupported by law or fact in the public sphere,” the judge said. “But attorneys cannot exploit their privilege and access to the judicial process to do the same.” Detroit was represented by lawyers in private practice. They’re seeking $182,000. The Michigan attorney general’s office is requesting about $22,000. Parker also ordered 12 hours of legal education, including six hours in election law, for each of the nine pro-Trump attorneys. Her decision will be sent to the states where the lawyers are licensed for possible disciplinary action there.

Full Article: Michigan, Detroit seek $204K for fighting election lawsuit | Hosted

Michigan: Judge Orders Sanctions Against Pro-Trump Lawyers Over Election Lawsuit | Alan Feuer/The New York Times

A federal judge in Michigan on Wednesday night ordered sanctions to be levied against nine pro-Trump lawyers, including Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, ruling that a lawsuit laden with conspiracy theories that they filed last year challenging the validity of the presidential election was “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.” In her decision, Judge Linda V. Parker of the Federal District Court in Detroit ordered the lawyers to be referred to the local legal authorities in their home states for possible suspension or disbarment. Declaring that the lawsuit should never have been filed, Judge Parker wrote in her 110-page order that it was “one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election,” but another to deceive “a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed.” “This is what happened here,” she wrote. … The Michigan lawsuit, filed in late November, was one of four legal actions, collectively known as the “Kraken” suits, that Ms. Powell filed in courts around the country, claiming that tabulation machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were tampered with by a bizarre set of characters, such as the financier George Soros or Venezuelan intelligence agents. In the suits, she complained without merit that those conspirators began a complicated, covert plot to digitally flip votes from President Donald J. Trump to his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

Full Article: Judge Orders Sanctions Against Pro-Trump Lawyers Over Election Lawsuit – The New York Times

Michigan: Federal judge sanctions Sidney Powell, Kraken team over election case | Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

Attorneys allied with former President Donald Trump who tried to use a conspiracy-laden lawsuit to overturn Michigan’s election results have received federal sanctions from a judge in Michigan and could face a host of other disciplinary measures. The attorneys must also pay legal fees for the city of Detroit and others that defended against the lawsuit and take 12 hours of training — including six hours focused on election law — in the next six months. The punishments foreshadow far more potentially devastating problems for Sidney Powell, Lin Wood and a cadre of other attorneys who used their so-called “Kraken” lawsuit to push a false claim that an international cabal worked to steal the election away from Trump in Michigan and several other states. In addition to harshly chastising the attorneys who filed the suit in her ruling, U.S. District Judge Linda Parker ordered her sanctions be sent to the Michigan Attorney Grievance Commission and similar associations around the country. Other courts and state bar associations have the capacity to disbar or otherwise punish these attorneys. “The attorneys who filed the instant lawsuit abused the well-established rules applicable to the litigation process by proffering claims not backed by law; proffering claims not backed by evidence (but instead, speculation, conjecture, and unwarranted suspicion); proffering factual allegations and claims without engaging in the required prefiling inquiry; and dragging out these proceedings even after they acknowledged that it was too late to attain the relief sought,” wrote Parker in a 110-page opinion, issued Wednesday. “And this case was never about fraud — it was about undermining the people’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.”

Full Article: Federal judge sanctions Sidney Powell, Kraken team over election case

Michigan: Hearing scheduled in dismissed Antrim County election lawsuit |Mardi Link/Traverse City Record-Eagle

A hearing is scheduled in an Antrim County election-related lawsuit in which Michigan’s Secretary of State intervened, despite a judge’s earlier decision dismissing the case. A local man, Bill Bailey, filed suit Nov. 23, accusing the county of voter fraud and of violating his constitutional rights, after initial results of the 2020 Presidential election showed about 2,000 votes cast for then-President Donald Trump had mistakenly been assigned to then-challenger Joe Biden. Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy acknowledged her office’s human error, an assertion backed by the state’s Senate Oversight Committee, which in June released a 55-page report rejecting claims of widespread election fraud in Antrim County and in Michigan. Bailey had also accused the county of diluting his vote, after a marijuana proposal, allowing a single dispensary in the Village of Central Lake, passed by a single vote. Records show Bailey is registered to vote in Central Lake Township, and only voters registered in the Village of Central Lake received ballots which included the marijuana proposal. Bailey — represented by Matthew DePerno of Portage — accused Antrim County of using what he called intentionally compromised Dominion voting equipment, that deliberately “switched” votes from Republican to Democratic candidates during the 2020 election. These claims have been repeatedly debunked by Dominion CEO John Poulos, and by national, state and county election officials including Chris Krebs, the former chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, Ryan Macias, former acting director of U.S. Election Assistance Commission Voting Testing and Certification Program and Alex Halderman, a professor of computer science and engineering at the University of Michigan.

Full Article: Hearing scheduled in dismissed Antrim County election lawsuit | Local News | record-eagle.com

Michigan Bill Would Protect Election Workers from Threats | Samuel J. Robinson/MLive.com

A bill introduced by a Democratic Michigan House member aims to protect election workers from threats and intimidation. House Bill 5282, introduced by state Rep. Kara Hope, D- Holt, would make it illegal for individuals to harass election workers, punishing those who threaten or prevent workers from performing their duties with a misdemeanor charge with up to 90 days in jail, a $500 fine, or both. Hope said a chaotic scene at Detroit’s TCF Center while election workers counted absentee ballots cast during the 2020 general election last November prompted her to craft the legislation. “Since the 2020 election, poll workers have been the targets of severe harassment and intimidation,” Hope said. “Republican and Democratic election officials alike are being terrorized by conspiracy theorists insisting that the election was stolen despite all evidence to the contrary. “It seems to me like that type of behavior — being disruptive, the bullying, the intimidation — is encouraged by a certain segment of the far-right. You saw it at the TCF Center, you see it now at school board meetings.” Hope said she sees some groups continue to encourage dangerous behavior over legitimate political activity, like organizing or voting.

Full Article: Michigan Bill Would Protect Election Workers from Threats

Michigan GOP panel to consider proposal againstelection report author | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

A committee inside the Michigan Republican Party plans to consider Saturday a proposal that calls for the resignation of GOP state Sen. Ed McBroom, who led a probe finding no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election. While Norm Shinkle, the chairman of the party’s Issues Committee, says he will oppose the resolution, its introduction points to the continued rift within the Michigan GOP over former President Donald Trump’s loss in November. The proposed resolution, obtained by The Detroit News, describes the Senate Oversight Committee’s eight-month investigation into the 2020 election as “the product of gross official misconduct.” The resolution primarily focuses on the Senate report’s suggestion that Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel consider investigating individuals who pushed false claims about the election “to raise money or publicity for their own ends.” “In the broader context of ongoing attacks against the American people’s right to free speech and the right to counsel, the report bolsters and encourages these attacks in a transparent attempt to intimidate and silence all citizens exposing the misconduct of election officials, challenging the results of the election and advocating for legal and policy remedies,” the proposed resolution says.

Source: Michigan GOP panel to consider proposal against election report author