Northern Michigan county accused of election fraud to count ballots by hand in May
Associated Press
Bellaire, Mich. – A northern Michigan county that was sued over its counting of the fall election will count paper ballots by hand in the May 4 primary.
Antrim County commissioners turned down a request from the county clerk for $5,080 to prepare Dominion voting machines for the upcoming election, the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported.
Commissioners instead said ballots will be counted by hand, though Clerk Sheryl Guy, the chief election officer, said it could be illegal.
“The state said we can’t. But let them come tell us that we can’t, given our circumstance,” said Commissioner Ed Boettcher.
The county still is locked in litigation with a resident who accused officials of fraud in the fall election.
Initial results in the Republican county showed a local victory for Joe Biden over Donald Trump. But it was attributed to human error, not any problems with voting machines, and corrected. A judge still took the extraordinary step of allowing forensic images of Dominion election equipment.
Guy had proposed hiring a contractor to install new hard drives on machines before the May 4 election.
New machines in the nine precincts that are holding an election would cost about $55,000.
“If we do a one-time (hand count) of the May election … it’s going to cost us money – it’s going to cost us less than $55,000 certainly – and the lawsuit will hopefully have played out by then,” Boettcher said.
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Internal emails reveal Antrim Co. response to voting problem that fueled conspiracies
Craig Mauger
The Detroit News
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Antrim County has inspired nationwide conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 presidential election, but internal emails from the northern Michigan county clerk's office show election officials quickly identified the human errors that led to problems with initial results.
There wasn't a mysterious glitch with the Dominion Voting Systems election technology, as some lawyers and advocates have suggested without providing clear evidence. Instead, late changes to the ballot and the lack of a thorough rechecking of the machinery led to the discrepancies.
Antrim County election officials realized something went wrong within five hours of posting the unofficial results showing that Democrat Joe Biden won the Republican county stronghold, according to a Detroit News review of hundreds of emails from within the Antrim County Clerk's Office.
They took responsibility for the mistakes that led to the problems, worked to share information about what had happened but were overpowered by a wave of false allegations.
The 2020 election in Antrim County is defined by a handful of errors that turned into fuel for frustrated supporters of President Donald Trump, who handily won Antrim County when the official results were posted three days later but who lost Michigan by 154,000 votes.
Instead of emphasizing what happened, which was clear to local election officials on Nov. 4, high-ranking Republicans spent weeks pushing to investigate the situation, which fanned the fires of conspiracy.
Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy has received threats. As a result of the continuing controversy and Republican conspiracy theories, the one-time Trump voter said she is considering never voting for a Republican candidate again.