Michigan: U.S. Supreme Court won’t rule on Sidney Powell’s lawsuit | Beth LeBlanc and Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

The U.S. Supreme Court will not weigh in on a case brought by a group of Michigan Republicans seeking to overturn President Joe Biden’s win in the state. The nine justices on Monday denied the plaintiffs a writ of certiorari, meaning the case filed by Sidney Powell and other attorneys will not proceed. The King v. Whitmer lawsuit was filed in federal court in late November on behalf of three Republican Electoral College electors and three local GOP officials who cited conspiracy theories, unproven claims of fraudulent election software and analyses to call into question Biden’s 154,000-vote win in Michigan. The Supreme Court’s action Monday “once and for all ends these frivolous election cases,” said David Fink, lead counsel for the City of Detroit, which had intervened in the litigation. “Every claim of election fraud in Michigan has been rejected,” Fink said. “It’s time for the attorneys who filed these baseless lawsuits to be held accountable for their actions.” The Republicans who filed the suit included Timothy King, Marian Sheridan and John Haggard, who would have been presidential electors had former President Donald Trump won the election. Sheridan was elected earlier this month to serve as grassroots chair for the Michigan Republican Party. 

Full Article: U.S. Supreme Court won’t rule on Powell’s Michigan lawsuit

Michigan regent denounces ‘cynical lies’ about 2020 election | Craig Mauger Kim Kozlowski/The Detroit News

Defeating individuals who reject truth and democracy is “the struggle for our time,” University of Michigan regent Jordan Acker declared during a speech at a Thursday board meeting. Acker, a Democrat, addressed the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and unsubstantiated claims of fraud focused on the Nov. 3 election. He contended that people cannot reject others they simply disagree with but have to reject “those who disdain democracy.” “We must all live in the same basic truth: The election of 2020 was not stolen, the insurrection was not a hoax, and that our government can only endure when the losers of an election accept the legitimacy of defeat,” Acker said. The election’s results, including Democratic President Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in Michigan, are “not matters of opinion” but are facts, Acker said during his speech at the beginning of the meeting. “No man or woman can lead who denies objective truths,” he said. “We cannot claim we are a democracy while standing with those who would reject it for conspiracy-laden minority rule.” Acker’s speech did not reference fellow regent Ron Weiser, the new chairman of the Michigan Republican Party. But Weiser, an Ann Arbor businessman, has been criticized for choosing GOP activist Meshawn Maddock as his co-chair. Maddock supported efforts to overturn the results of the election last year as former President Donald Trump levied unproven claims of widespread election fraud.

Full Article: Michigan regent denounces ‘cynical lies’ about 2020 election `

Michigan election audit affirms Nov. presidential results, Benson says | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

A statewide election audit has affirmed the results of the November presidential election in Michigan, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said Friday. “This statewide audit process affirms what election officials on both sides of the aisle have said since November — that Michigan’s election was conducted securely and fairly, and the results accurately reflect the will of the voters,” Benson said. The statewide risk-limiting audit was one of many audits conducted after the November general election meant to test the accuracy of the machine count and election results.  On Jan. 11, local and state election officials and staff rolled a 10-sided die to generate a 20-digit number that was plugged into auditing software to select more than 18,000 ballots to be reviewed by hand. Clerks across the state retrieved ballots selected in their jurisdictions and reviewed the votes cast for president. In the hand count, President Joe Biden received more votes than former President Donald Trump and the share of votes each candidate received was within a fraction of a percentage point of the certified results, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. Biden won the state by more than 154,000 votes. “Although a random sample of 18,000 ballots would not be expected to exactly match the percentages of votes cast for candidates out of all 5.5 million ballots, the closeness in percentages between the hand-reviewed ballots and the machine-tabulated totals provides strong additional evidence of the accuracy of the machine count,” the Secretary of State’s Office said in a news release. 

Full Article: Michigan election audit affirms Nov. presidential results, Benson says

Michigan: Costs rising in Antrim County election lawsuit | Mardi Link/Traverse City Record-Eagle

Costs are rising for Antrim County officials, who continue to defend against an ongoing election-related lawsuit and respond to security tasks, said County Clerk Sheryl Guy. “Since the election, we’ve probably spent $30,000 on legal fees and overtime for deputies,” Guy said Tuesday. “And we’re not done yet.” A Central Lake Township man, Bill Bailey, filed a lawsuit against the county Nov. 23, arguing his vote was “diluted,” and his constitutional rights violated. Bailey also accuses Antrim County of using what he claims were intentionally compromised Dominion voting equipment, that deliberately “switched” votes from Republican to Democratic candidates during the 2020 election. Such claims have been repeatedly debunked by Dominion CEO John Poulos, and by national, state and county election officials. Dominion, in response to claims made about its equipment and software, filed $1.3 billion defamation lawsuits against Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, attorneys on former President Donald Trump’s election-challenging legal team, and sent a cease and desist letter to Bailey’s attorney, records show.

Full Article: Costs rising in Antrim election lawsuit | News | record-eagle.com

Michigan: Gateway Pundit video doesn’t show election fraud in Detroit | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

An article from the conservative news website The Gateway Pundit claims that a video from the TCF Center where Detroit election workers counted absentee ballots cast by the city’s voters “shows late night deliveries of tens of thousands of illegal ballots 8 hours after deadline.”The article claims that the video is “proof of fraud in Detroit.” The video appears to show a white van at the TCF Center early in the morning on Nov. 4 containing ballots that were unloaded and brought into the counting room at the TCF Center. There is no evidence of anything nefarious. In Michigan, voters had until 8 p.m. on Election Day to return absentee ballots. The deadline was for casting ballots, not delivering or counting them.  A sworn affidavit written by Christopher Thomas, the former Michigan Director of Elections who worked at the TCF Center, in response to a lawsuit against the city says that no late-arriving ballots were ever counted. “No absentee ballots received after the deadline of 8 p.m. on November 3, 2020, were received by or processed at the TCF Center. Only ballots received by the deadline were processed,” Thomas wrote. 

Full Article: Gateway Pundit video doesn’t show election fraud in Detroit

Michigan election officials ordered to turn over communications with tech giants | Dus Burns/MLive.com

Michigan election officials were ordered to turn over a wide variety of records related to the 2020 election cycle, including any communications with Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple as part of a recent lawsuit. Antrim County Circuit Judge Kevin A. Elsenheimer also ordered Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and her Bureau of Elections to turn over election-related communications between the offices and Antrim Township, Antrim County, state and federal legislators, as well as Dominion Voting System and Election Source, companies that supply voting machines and software used in Antrim County and much of Michigan. The records were requested by Portage-based Attorney Matthew S. DePerno on behalf of his client, William Bailey, an Antrim County voter who sued Antrim County over claims the election results were fraudulent and voting machines rigged. A short-lived, nearly 6,000-vote error in Michigan’s Republican-dominated Antrim County initially benefited President-Elect Joe Biden following the Nov. 3 election. The error was quickly identified and corrected, determined to be a human error caused by the county clerk’s failure to properly update some software in the counting machines, not due to any inherent flaws with the voting machine or software. Nevertheless, the incident gave rise to much broader conspiracies related to Dominion voting machines that are used heavily in Michigan and other states across the nation.

Full Article: Michigan election officials ordered to turn over communications with tech giants – mlive.com

Michigan Attorney General Nessel files for sanctions against attorneys in election lawsuit | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel filed a motion Thursday for sanctions against the attorneys who brought a lawsuit that relied on conspiracy theories and misinformation in a failed attempt to overturn the state’s election in favor of then-President Donald Trump. The so-called “Kraken” lawsuit was filed by three Michigan attorneys and ex-Trump attorney Sidney Powell on behalf of presidential electors nominated by the Michigan Republican Party. U.S. District Judge Linda Parker denied the request to overturn the election after Michigan voters handed the state to now-President Joe Biden by more than 154,000 votes. In her opinion, Parker argued that the lawsuit appeared to be an effort to undermine faith in the democratic process. Explaining the request for sanctions, Nessel said, “These lawyers must be held accountable for betraying the trust placed in them as members of the bar.” She said the lawsuit played a role in fomenting the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol by pro-Trump extremists. “By pursuing this suit that had no basis in either fact or law, they have only fueled the fire of distrust in our democracy that led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.”  The motion for sanctions filed by Nessel in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan argues that Michigan attorneys Greg Rohl, Scott Hagerstrom and Stefanie Junttila along with Powell, who is a licensed attorney in the state of Texas, pursued the lawsuit in violation of their oaths as attorneys, court rules and rules of professional conduct. Nessels’ motion for sanctions follows another filed by the city of Detroit. 

Full Article: Nessel seeks action against attorneys in election lawsuit

Michigan: Expert witness list released in Antrim County voter case | Mardi Link/Traverse City Record-Eagle

An expert witness list filed as part of an ongoing lawsuit accusing Antrim County of voter fraud, includes far-right activists who previously challenged 2020 election results in several states, in coordination with former President Donald Trump’s legal team, court documents show. On the list is Russell Ramsland, of Texas-based Allied Security Operations Group, who signed an error-laden report accusing the county and Dominion Voting Systems of deliberately altering election results. Ramsland, among those conducting a court-ordered forensic examination of the county’s voting equipment, previously made inaccurate claims about election results in Detroit, and mistook voting jurisdictions in Minnesota for Michigan in court filings. The other witnesses include Col. James P. Waldron, Doug Logan, representatives of Atlanta-based software developer and data security firm, Sullivan Strickler, attorney Katherine Friess, C. James Hayes and Todd B. Sanders, documents provided by the state Attorney General’s office shows. Information on which of these witnesses assisted with the in-person exam, was not included in court filings. “What role each one played in the preparation of the report, my understanding is we won’t know until these individuals are deposed,” said attorney Haider Kazim, who is representing Antrim County.

Full Article: Expert witness list released in Antrim County voter case | News | record-eagle.com

Michigan Governor appoints new member to elections board after GOP wanted replacement | Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has appointed a new Republican to a key state elections panel after the state party sought to replace a member who voted in favor of certifying the state’s election results. Tony Daunt will replace Aaron Van Langevelde on the Michigan Board of State Canvassers, Whitmer said in an announcement Tuesday morning. Daunt is the executive director of the Michigan Freedom Fund, a conservative organization with ties to the DeVos family that organized some of the protests in the spring where marchers objected to the governor’s COVID-19 executive orders. He previously worked for Gov. Rick Snyder and the Michigan Republican Party.  “I appreciate the nomination from (Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox) and the appointment by Governor Whitmer,” Daunt said in a statement issued through the fund. “The Board of State Canvassers requires leaders willing to follow the rule of law and to provide honest leadership, and I am honored to be entrusted with this position. Aaron Van Langevelde served with honor and integrity, and the entire state owes him a debt of gratitude. Our republic depends on fair and secure elections and I’m committed to upholding those values.”

Full Article: Tony Daunt appointed to Michigan Board of State Canvassers

Michigan Republicans seek to replace canvasser who certified election | Beth LeBlanc and Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

The Michigan Republican Party wants to replace the GOP member of the Board of State Canvassers who cast the pivotal vote to certify election results in favor of Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. With party activists calling for certification to be blocked on Nov. 23, Aaron Van Langevelde, a policy adviser and deputy legal counsel for state House Republicans, joined the two Democrats on the four-member board to sign offon the results.His term ends on Jan. 31. Instead of renominating him for a four-year term, the Michigan Republican Party has proposed three well-known activists to take his spot, according to a letter obtained by The Detroit News. Among them is Linda Lee Tarver, who was involved in a lawsuit that sought to have the GOP-controlled Legislature intervene in the results showing Democratic President-elect Joe Biden won. Van Langevelde said he was never asked if he’d like another term on the board, unlike the first time he was nominated, when the party approached him about serving. He said the party’s decision came as no surprise, but he stood by his vote and said he was proud of the board’s decision. “My conscience is clear, and I am confident that my decision is on the right side of the law and history,” Van Langevelde said in a Monday statement. “Time will tell that those who spread misinformation and tried to overturn the election were wrong, and they should be held responsible for the chaos and confusion they have caused.” In addition to Tarver, a longtime former employee of the Michigan Department of State, the state Republican Party also nominated Tony Daunt, director of the conservative Michigan Freedom Fund, and Tori Sachs, a political strategist and executive director of Michigan Rising Action.

Full Article: Michigan Republicans seek to replace canvasser who certified election

Michigan election officials begin statewide audit of Nov. 3 vote | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

Michigan election officials began conducting a statewide audit of the Nov. 3 general election Monday that involves reviewing ballots from more than half of the state’s local jurisdictions, which is more than have ever participated in such an audit in the nation, according to the Secretary of State’s Office. The Michigan Department of State will work with county and local election officials to undertake the “risk-limiting” audit, which will entail hand counting ballots from randomly selected jurisdictions across the state. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said she hopes the audit will increase confidence in the election process and outcome after a disinformation campaign by President Donald Trump and his allies to sow doubt on the election precipitated the deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan 6. “Post-election audits are an important part of the elections process and are critical to both affirming the accuracy of the results and reinforcing citizen trust in the system,” Benson said. She added, “This year more than ever, with the high volume of misinformation spread about what was an incredibly safe, secure and accurate election, conducting this bipartisan process openly and transparently is an important step in ensuring Michigan voters understand the truth about the security and integrity of our election system.”

Full Article: Michigan election officials begin statewide audit

Michigan Attorney General claims wins in ongoing presidential election fraud cases | Gus Burns/MLive.com

Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Office claimed victories in two separate court rulings Monday related to unresolved election fraud lawsuits. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it won’t expedite the hearing of a federal lawsuit filed by President Donald Trump voters against Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, the city of Detroit and others related to unfounded election fraud claims. “The Supreme Court’s decision put another nail in the coffin on the bogus claims of widespread fraud in Michigan’s election,” Nessel said following the decision Monday. The second ruling involves a motion filed in a state lawsuit by attorneys for William Bailey of Central Lake in Antrim County, who claims Dominion Voting Systems ballot tabulation machines contributed to inaccurate and potentially corrupted election results. Judge Kevin Elsenheimer of the 13th Circuit Court in Antrim County on Dec. 6 granted Bailey permission to further analyze the county’s 22 tabulation machines. Bailey and his counsel then requested the identities of their selected analysts be withheld from the public. Elsenheimer denied that request, according to the AG’s Office. Antrim County’s failure to properly update its Dominion voting software initially resulted in incorrect reports of unofficial results, but the error was captured and corrected within two days. Once it was realized the totals generated by the county-level software didn’t match the precinct results, Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican, said she and her staff manually reentered results from about 30 feet of printout “tapes” from each of her 16 precincts and 15 townships.

Full Article: Michigan AG claims wins in ongoing presidential election fraud cases – mlive.com

Michigan officials faced violent threats well before U.S. Capitol siege | Madeline Halpert/Bridge Michigan

After pro-Trump rioters stormed Washington’s Capitol to disrupt an Electoral College vote count, several public officials and security experts in Michigan said they aren’t surprised by the mayhem. Wednesday’s siege at the Capitol followed weeks of post-election threats to public officials in Michigan and other battleground states that left many concerned for their safety and wondering whether qualified people will want to serve in public official roles in the future. “I’ve been getting battered and flooded with emails and phone calls and texts for months,” said Jonathan Kinloch, the Democratic vice chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, one of several local and state bodies targeted by President Trump and his supporters after Michigan certified the November election for Democrat Joe Biden. “Nobody wants to take on a role as a member of a board of canvassers or any other community-serving positions and have the fear of losing their lives hanging over their head,” he said. Kinloch told Bridge Michigan he received at least 20 messages a day in November following the certification, some more aggressive than others. “Maybe you should peek out your windows and make sure the boogie man (sic) doesn’t come for you while you smoke your crack,” read one email sent to Kinloch reviewed by Bridge. Javed Ali, a senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the Trump administration, noted that the chaos at the U.S. Capitol Wednesday followed a tumultuous and politically-polarizing year in Michigan during which armed civilians stormed the state Capitol to protest COVID-19 restrictions in the spring and militia members were charged in October with plotting to kidnap Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The divisiveness was exacerbated by the president and his supporters, who threw gasoline on the fire with false allegations of a “rigged” election, Ali said.

Full Article: Michigan officials faced violent threats well before U.S. Capitol siege | Bridge Michigan

Michigan lawmakers hunkered down as rioters breached US Capitol | Todd Spangler and Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

As an unprecedented confrontation at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday devolved the finalizing of the Nov. 3 election for President-elect Joe Biden into chaos, members of Congress, including those from Michigan, hunkered down in offices, sheltered in place and were moved to undisclosed locations as President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the building. With shots being fired and tear gas being released in the halls of Congress, the Electoral College count was suspended at least temporarily as the National Guard was called in, a 6 p.m. curfew was imposed in Washington D.C. and members of the U.S. House and Senate voiced disbelief at the violent turn of events. “There was shooting at the doors and they evacuated all of us to an undisclosed location,” said U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, who was on the floor of the U.S. House when protesters overwhelmed Capitol Police and swarmed the building. “Is this America?” she asked, clearly shaken. “Is this the country we believe in?” “They tried to lock us in to keep us safe,” she added, “but that ended when people started pounding on the doors. We heard them shooting at the doors. People are in hand-to-hand combat in the Capitol.”

Full Article: Michigan lawmakers hunkered down as rioters breached US Capitol

Michigan: Trump repeated lies about election before pro-Trump supporters stormed Capitol | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

Hours before pro-Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, forcing lawmakers convening to certify the Electoral College votes to seek safety, President Donald Trump gave a speech repeating lies that he won the election and unleashed a litany of debunked claims about Michigan’s election, which President-elect Joe Biden won by more than 154,000 votes. After the riots broke out, Trump waited two hours to press for calm. In a tweet, Trump told his supporters to “stay peaceful” but did not condemn the actions by his supporters. In a video released an hour before a 6 p.m. curfew in Washington, D.C., Trump continued to press baseless claims of election fraud, repeating the false claim that the election was stolen from him. Trump opened his video by saying, “I know your pain. I know your hurt. But you have to go home now.” He also went on to call his supporters “very special,” and said, “We can’t play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home. We love you. You’re very special.”

Full Article: Trump’s false claims about Michigan election followed by violence

Michigan: Sidney Powell Should Lose State Law License, Detroit Argues | Joel Rosenblatt/Bloomberg

Detroit officials want former Trump campaign lawyer Sidney Powell to lose her license to practice law in Michigan as punishment for pursuing far-fetched litigation to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election. Powell is the highest-profile leader of a group of lawyers behind the “Kraken,” her reference to the mythical sea monster, that she promised would be unleashed in the courts and prove that Biden beat incumbent Donald Trump only because Democrats engaged in a massive fraud. Powell’s suit in Michigan was knowingly based on lies and is so frivolous that the group behind it requires the harshest penalty, Detroit said Tuesday in a court filing. “This lawsuit, and the lawsuits filed in the other states, are not just damaging to our democratic experiment, they are also deeply corrosive to the judicial process itself,” lawyers for the city said in a request to U.S. District Judge Linda V. Parker to refer Powell for state bar disciplinary proceedings in Michigan and her home state of Texas. Parker last month rejected an attempt by Powell and her fellow attorneys to decertify Michigan’s election results. Powell and the group let a three-week period to withdraw their suit lapse. Detroit argues that’s because it’s taken on a new life supporting arguments for Congress to reject Michigan’s electors on Jan. 6. The Detroit lawyers say Trump repeated the false claims in the Michigan lawsuit in his Saturday phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, asking him to “find” just enough votes to overturn Biden’s win.

Full Article: Sidney Powell Should Lose Michigan Law License, Detroit Argues – Bloomberg

Michigan: Trump repeats false claims about election in leaked Georgia phone call | Malachi Barrett/MLive.com

President Donald Trump repeated several inaccurate statements about Michigan’s election results while pressuring Georgia officials to overturn his defeat over the weekend. Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, to reverse his loss in the state during a one-hour phone call published by The Washington Post. A recording of the conversation shows Trump pointed to false claims about Michigan while describing “turmoil” surrounding the results in several states won by Democratic President-elect Joe Biden. Raffensperger pushed back against Trump’s claims during the phone call, telling the president “the data you have is wrong” and “we don’t agree that you have won” Georgia. Election officials in Michigan have likewise debunked allegations Trump repeated Saturday about inflated turnout and dead people voting. Trump made two claims about Michigan deemed untrue by election officials. First, the president claimed “In Detroit, I think it was, 139% of the people voted.” Certified results show only 51% of the city turned out to vote. There are 506,305 registered voters in the city of Detroit, and 257,619 ballots were cast. Detroit turnout in the 2020 election was only slightly higher than in 2016, when 49% of registered voters cast a ballot. Trump earned 5,207 more Detroit votes in 2020, while Democratic votes increased by 6,055. Trump also claimed “a tremendous number of dead people” voted, suggesting “it was 18,000.” Trump said the figure came from “going through the obituary columns in the newspapers.” It’s not clear where the specific figure came from, but there is no evidence to corroborate what the president suggested over the weekend. Claims of dead voters in Michigan have been a common subject of unproven fraud allegations since the election.

Full Article: Trump repeats false claims about Michigan election in leaked Georgia phone call – mlive.com

Michigan Attorney General: Attorney in Antrim County case should reveal names of elections review team Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

An attorney working with a team that reviewed voting machines in Antrim County wants a judge to prevent Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel from publicly revealing the names or other identifying information of those who conducted the review. The report is at the heart of conspiracies furthered by President Donald Trump and others that incorrectly assert there was widespread election fraud in November. Attorney Matthew DePerno said in a recent legal filing that revealing personal information would endanger the team, whose members “fear for their safety and the safety of their families in this hyper-political climate.” He also says he has been personally threatened. However, a copy of the 23-page report posted to his law firm’s website already includes the name of the firm that conducted the review on Dec. 6, and the name of the man who prepared the report. Attorneys working in Nessel’s office told the court they are willing to agree to an order that would prohibit the release of any contact information, like phone numbers or addresses, for everyone involved in creating the report. But by asking the court to prevent the release of the names of the people who conducted the review, they say DePerno and his client are trying to both publicize the report while withholding information that could bolster or undermine its credibility.

Full Article: AG: Names of Antrim County election review team should be public

Michigan: Woman faces federal charges for sending threats, photo of bloody corpse to Wayne County canvasser | Malachi Barrett/MLive.com

A New Hampshire woman is facing federal charges for allegedly threatening the chair of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers through a series of text messages that included graphic photos of a mutilated corpse. Katelyn Jones, a 23-year-old former Olivet resident who now lives in Epping, New Hampshire, admitted to the FBI that she threatened Republican board member Monica Palmer because she felt Palmer was interfering with the presidential election. Jones is charged with transmitting threats of violence through interstate commerce and faces up to 20 years in federal prison, and a fine of up to $250,000, if convicted. “The allegations in this case should make all of us disgusted,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in a statement. “There is simply no place in Michigan, or in the United States, for chilling threats like this to people who are simply doing what they believe is correct.” The Wayne County Board of Canvassers received national attention when Palmer and another Republican board member declined to certify results of the Nov. 3 election, citing unproven allegations of voter fraud touted by President Donald Trump and his allies. Both Republicans agreed to vote to certify results in exchange for an audit of Wayne County results, but Palmer later signed an affidavit saying she wanted to rescind her vote.

Full Article: Woman faces federal charges for sending threats, photo of bloody corpse to Wayne County canvasser

Michigan: Threat against Wayne County canvasser leads to federal charges for New Hampshire woman | Robert Snell/The Detroit News

Federal prosecutors Wednesday filed charges against a New Hampshire woman accused of texting threats to the chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers following the presidential election and sending photos of a bloody mutilated female body. Katelyn Jones, 23, a former Olivet resident who lives in Epping, was charged with threatening violence through interstate commerce following an FBI investigation that probed lingering fallout from President Donald Trump’s defeat and baseless allegations about voting irregularities. The criminal complaint and an FBI affidavit filed in federal court describe threats made against Monica Palmer, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, after the Republican canvasser voted against certifying the election results. Palmer faced intense scrutiny over her decision to decline certification, then certify and then attempt to rescind her vote on the final certification of roughly 878,000 votes in Michigan’s largest county. “The allegations in this case should make all of us disgusted,” U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in a statement. “There is simply no place in Michigan, or in the United States, for chilling threats like this to people who are simply doing what they believe is correct.” Palmer declined to comment Wednesday.

Full Article: Threat against Wayne Co. canvasser leads to federal charges for N.H. woman

Michigan is conducting postelection audits. Here’s how that works | Mikhayla Dunaj/Detroit Free Press

In early December, the Michigan Bureau of Elections announced and commenced the first stages of the state’s postelection audits. According the Secretary of State’s Office, these are the most comprehensive postelection audits in Michigan’s history with a statewide risk-limiting audit in addition to procedural audits. Each of these audits ensures election protocol, procedures and results are sound in Michigan. Here are some answers to questions about the postelection auditing process. According to Michigan’s Post-Election Audit Manual, the process verifies that Michigan law and election procedures were followed correctly before, during and after Election Day. This includes reviewing voted ballots by hand to make sure tabulation equipment worked and gave correct results. The Michigan Election Security Advisory Commission published an October 2020 report that details the two types of postelection audits: procedural and tabulation audits. Procedural audits verify that election procedures are followed by reviewing election processes, machines and ballots in a jurisdiction. Procedural audits seek to examine clerical errors made on or before Election Day. For instance, they review poll books and ballots to determine why numbers didn’t match. This gives local clerks a chance to prevent similar errors in future elections with updated protocol, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a guest column published last month. Tabulation audits randomly select precincts in a jurisdiction and recount all of their paper ballots by hand to confirm the accuracy of ballot tabulation machines.

Full Article: Michigan’s post-election audit: What’s involved, how it works

Michigan Attorney General to seek sanctions against some lawyers challenging vote results | Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

Attorney General Dana Nessel said she plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state’s election results that contained “intentional misrepresentations” regarding Michigan’s elections. The Democratic attorney general also plans to pursue court costs and fees and, along with Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, to file complaints with the attorney grievance commission, Nessel told reporters Tuesday. The requests will likely be made after the cases have been closed out, she said. “Some of these cases where we know for a fact there were intentional misrepresentations made — the kind of misrepresentation that there is no question of fact that these were inaccurate statements that were presented to the court — yes, myself and also Secretary Benson, will be filing complaints to the attorney grievance commission,” Nessel said.

Full Article: Nessel to seek sanctions against some lawyers challenging vote results

Michigan: Sanctions sought for lawyers who aimed to overturn election | Beth LeBlanc and Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Attorney General Dana Nessel said she plans to seek sanctions against lawyers who filed lawsuits against the state’s election results with claims that featured “intentional misrepresentations.” The Democratic attorney general also plans to pursue court costs and fees and to file complaints with the attorney grievance commission, Nessel told reporters Tuesday. Her remarks came as the City of Detroit and an attorney for Wayne County voter Robert Davis took their own steps in search of sanctions against lawyers involved in one of the cases to overturn the state’s presidential election. Davis and his attorney, Andrew Paterson, filed a motion Tuesday afternoon in U.S. District Court for Michigan’s Eastern District for sanctions against the lawyers who represented six Michigan Republicans in asking a judge to require that President Donald Trump be named the state’s winner. The Republican’s case, which is known as King v. Whitmer, relied on conspiracy theories and discredited claims of wrongdoing. Trump lost Michigan to President-elect Joe Biden by 154,000 votes, according to the certified results, and no proof of widespread fraud has been presented. The court needs to sanction “the egregious conduct of the plaintiffs and their attorneys for making clearly frivolous arguments and using the judicial system to obtain unprecedented relief, to satisfy plaintiffs’ selfish and destructive political agendas,” said the filing from Davis, who had intervened in the case.

Full Article: Sanctions sought for lawyers who aimed to overturn Michigan’s election

Michigan: Report alleging election fraud in Antrim County is ‘baseless’ | Claire Savage/AFP

A report that is part of a lawsuit against Antrim County, Michigan claims the county’s quickly-corrected election night vote tally glitch was not due to human error, as the state said, but rather intentional election fraud. This is false; Michigan’s secretary of state called the claims “baseless,” and the company that provided the vote tabulation machines denied the allegations. “The Dominion Voting System is intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results,” says the December 13, 2020 report filed as part of the case. Outlets Newsmax, Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit legitimized and spread the false claims, and social media users shared the report findings as fact here and here. The report cites a “significant and fatal error rate” of more than 68 percent, claiming that Dominion Voting Systems “intentionally generates an enormously high number of ballot errors,” leading to “bulk adjudication of ballots with no oversight, no transparency, and no audit trail.” In November, articles shared thousands of times on social media claimed that an Antrim County reporting mistake — which temporarily misattributed Donald Trump votes to president-elect Joe Biden — posed a systemic risk to dozens of counties in the battleground state. The Michigan secretary of state’s office published a notice explaining that the glitch resulted from a user error, not a software problem, and that it did not affect the election results or other counties or states.

Source: Report alleging election fraud in Michigan county is ‘baseless’ | Fact Check

Michigan Antrim County Hand Recount Confirms Accuracy of Machine Recount, with 12-Vote Gain for Trump | Beth LeBlanc/The Detroit News

An audit of Antrim County election results Thursday gave President Donald Trump a net gain of 12 votes from the certified results in the northern Michigan county, a small gain in light of unsubstantiated allegations of mass fraud targeting the county’s election software. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s total decreased by one vote, from 5,960 to 5,959, while Trump’s increased 11 votes, from 9,748 to 9,759, according to preliminary results from the county’s more than seven-hour, livestreamed audit. Biden won the state of Michigan by more than 154,000 votes on Nov. 3, according to certified results. Third-party presidential candidates in Antrim County were off by zero to one vote compared with certified results. “This is very typical of what we find in a hand-count of ballots,” said Lori Bourbonais, with the Michigan Department of State. “It is normal to find one or two votes in a precinct that differ between a hand tally and machine count.” Earlier this month, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson announced a zero-margin risk-limiting audit of the presidential election in Antrim County. The audit includes a hand-tally of every ballot and compares that tally with machine-tabulated results. Among those assisting with the audit were staff from the Michigan Bureau of Elections; Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy, a Republican; Rochester Hills Clerk Tina Barton, a Republican, and Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope, a Democrat.

Full Article: Antrim County audit shows 12-vote gain for Trump

Michigan: Benson refuses to testify at House, says committee ‘wounding our democracy’ | Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has refused an invitation to testify before a House legislative committee, arguing the committee’s previous hearings with Rudy Giuliani and others show lawmakers are focused more on politics and undermining election integrity than on earnest reforms. On Wednesday, Benson tweeted a copy of the letter sent to House Oversight Committee Chairman Matt Hall, R-Emmett Township. In a statement Wednesday, Hall said Benson was “playing cheap political games.” Hall’s committee received international attention after Giuliani essentially commandeered portions of the more than four-hour proceeding, questioning his own witnesses while lawmakers largely watched. He used the misleading and inaccurate information provided during the hearing to argue state lawmakers must intervene in Michigan’s ultimate election outcome and give the state to President Donald Trump. Noting some of this testimony, Benson argued the committee has the duty to publicly state the Michigan election was conducted fairly in order to combat misinformation spread during previous committee hearings. “This is the truth, as certified by our State Board of Canvassers, and it is important that every leader acknowledge this is in order for us to move forward and solve many of the critical issues ahead of us,” Benson wrote in the letter, dated Tuesday.

Full Article: Benson refuses to testify at House, says committee ‘wounding our democracy’

Michigan: New Supreme Court filing includes blatantly wrong information about election | Dave Boucher/Detroit Free Press

A long-shot legal effort relying on conspiracy theories and inaccurate analyses to argue President Donald Trump actually won Michigan included additional blatantly false information in a new filing with the U.S. Supreme Court this week. The legal team, including attorney Sidney Powell, told the court the Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature backs its effort to allow a so-called GOP slate of Electoral College delegates cast the state’s 16 electoral votes for Trump. This is wrong. On Monday, Republican leaders of the Michigan House and Senate publicly acknowledged President-elect Joe Biden won the election. The same day, the state’s actual 16 Electoral College delegates voted for Biden, who received 154,000 more votes than Trump in Michigan. It’s unlikely the Supreme Court will take up this or any of the legal claims from Powell and her team. Powell previously appeared at news conferences with Rudy Giuliani and other Trump attorneys, but the campaign has since sought to distance itself from her. Gregory Rohl, a Michigan attorney working with Powell, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday. The group of Republicans who incorrectly argue they can cast electoral votes for Trump were not allowed into the state Capitol on Monday. Powell and her team represent several people who would have served as GOP delegates to the Electoral College had Trump won Michigan.

Full Are: New Supreme Court filing has blatantly wrong information about Michigan

Michigan: Former election security chief for Trump knocks down Antrim County report | Todd Spangler/Detroit Free Press

A former Trump administration official who oversaw election security and was ousted after saying there were no widespread problems on Wednesday pointed out problems with a report claiming irregularities in Antrim County and cited as proof of corruption by President Donald Trump and others. Testifying before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Chris Krebs, the former chief of the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, called the report by Allied Security Operations Group throwing doubts on the election systems used in Antrim County “factually inaccurate.” “It implies those systems are undependable,” said Krebs, who explained that he went over the report the group issued as part of a lawsuit questioning the vote results in the county that has been used by Trump and his allies to widely suggest corruption. He said he could find nothing in it to support those claims. The Free Press, which has been following the Antrim County case, has looked closely at the Allied Security Operations Group report, which claims the county’s equipment supplied by Dominion Voting Systems was “intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.” In those reports, the Free Press has concluded that some of its claims — including one that suggested machines had a 68% error rateas if that percentage of the county votes had been misred, left untallied or changed — were false or misleading. Krebs said when he went over the report he was thrown by that claim of a 68% error rate and he saw it “repeated in social media by the (Trump) campaign, by the president.” But as he looked more closely, he concluded that the number cited by the group is the number of alerts reported by the voting machines or tabulators, not necessarily errors or changes in the actual ballots as they were counted.

Full Article: Antrim County report debunked by former Trump election official

Michigan: Paper ballots verified election results, says Dominion CEO in Senate oversight hearing | Samuel Dodge/MLive.com

Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos defended the integrity of his company’s tabulating machines Tuesday during a state Senate Oversight Committee hearing. The company has been the focus of a “disinformation campaign,” Poulos told committee members on Dec. 15, adding that he is not aware of any legal claim against his hardware or software that hasn’t been dismissed or deemed “inaccurate” in court. Even in the slim chance Dominion’s machines were compromised, he said, a hand count of the physical paper ballots would have shown disparities before the vote was certified by the Board of State Canvassers. “All the tabulator does is count the votes of the paper ballots that have been created and securely cast by the voters,” he said during his three-hour testimony. “The number reported by the machine can always be compared to a hand count of those original paper ballots. People can speculate about votes being switched or secret algorithms or glitches, but if any of that were true, the paper ballots wouldn’t match the machine count.” The state canvassing board certified the vote last month, and President Donald Trump has not requested a hand recount. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will conduct a post-election audit, while the Michigan Bureau of Elections and Antrim County officials will tally all ballots by hand there, as many allegations against Dominion center around initial disparities reported in the county on Nov. 3.

Source: Paper ballots verified election results, says Dominion CEO in Senate oversight hearing – mlive.com

Michigan: Trump wrongly claims defect with voting machines | Paul Egan and Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

In a Tuesday tweet, Trump claimed there was a “68% error rate in Michigan Voting Machines. Should be, by law, a tiny percentage of one percent.” He suggested Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson would face legal scrutiny for the alleged errors. “Did Michigan Secretary of State break the law? Stay tuned!” Trump wrote. Trump was reacting to a consultant’s report that a judge made public Monday in connection with an election lawsuit in Antrim County, in northern Michigan, where a misapplied software update initially led to incorrect unofficial results being reported on election night. But Trump’s tweet misinterprets the findings of the report, which itself presents a misleading picture. Michigan vote tabulators do not read ballots incorrectly 68% of the time. Nor is that statement true if applied only to the Antrim County tabulators in the Nov. 3 election. And the report Trump reacted to, while ambiguous and inaccurate on the subject of errors, does not make that claim. The report is signed by cybersecurity analyst Russell James Ramsland Jr. of Allied Security Operations Group, a firm whose representatives have provided analyses and affidavits for lawsuits brought by Trump allies, falsely alleging voter fraud and election irregularities. In one such analysis on voter turnout, Ramsland mistook voting jurisdictions in Minnesota for Michigan towns. In another, filed in support of a federal lawsuit in Michigan, he made inaccurate claims about voter turnout in various municipalities, misstating them as much as tenfold.

Full Article: Trump wrongly claims defect with Michigan voting machines