Election prompts support for clerk, report of no fraud and audit request

Jun. 24—BELLAIRE — Hours after state Republican lawmakers released a report showing investigators found no evidence to support repeated claims made by former President Donald Trump of widespread election fraud in Michigan, a trio of county clerks stood on the lawn of the Antrim County Courthouse and pledged support of County Clerk Sheryl Guy.

"When I heard the nonsense about Sheryl, I said this doesn't even make sense," Genesee County Clerk and former Democratic lawmaker John Gleason said, of the repeated criticisms lodged over Guy's handling of the 2020 presidential election.

"They were waiting to ambush somebody," Gleason said. "And I think they were prepared, and I think that's why they've done what they did to our nation's capital and I think that's what they're doing to Sheryl."

Also in attendance were Muskegon County Clerk Nancy Waters and Midland County Clerk Ann Manary.

"She is our Sheryl," Waters said, praising Guy for showing her the ropes when she was first elected in 2009.

Guy, who attended the gathering where supporters held signs and cheered her name, previously said she, her co-workers and some of her family members had received threatening phone calls and were subjected to other frequent harassment.

The threats, which Antrim County Sheriff Dan Bean previously said were likely phoned in from out of state, followed Guy's acknowledgement in November there'd been a mistake by her office in reporting the initial results of the 2020 presidential election.

The mistake was corrected prior to certification and the county's results were further confirmed in a hand recount conducted by the state's Bureau of Elections on Dec. 17, but that did not stop Trump allies, including his former personal attorney Rudy Guiliani, from seizing on the mistake as evidence of fraud.

Trump allies also accused Dominion Voting Systems equipment, which is used in Antrim and 65 of Michigan's 83 counties, of being fraudulent and flipping votes cast for the former president and assigning them to then-challenger Joe Biden — similar claims were made in a lawsuit filed against Antrim County in late November, which Dominion has repeatedly denied.

A judge dismissed the lawsuit in May, the deadline for filing an appeal is approaching and a motion hearing is scheduled July 12 in front of 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer.

The 55-page report released by the state Senate Oversight Committee Wednesday morning rejected several faulty claims including that votes were flipped, that thousands of dead people voted, that absentee ballots were sent unsolicited to Michigan voters en mass and that voting machines were connected to the internet allowing foreign actors to tamper with election results.

An investigation in November by the Record-Eagle found, among a random sample of voters included in a "Dead MI Absentee Voters" list circulating on social media were very much alive and several had served as volunteer poll workers.

Alleged dead voters conspiracies were touted by Trump's re-election campaign to fuel claims of voter fraud in the battleground states that propelled Joe Biden to victory. Similar claims were debunked in Georgia and Pennsylvania.

The Michigan list was one of several shared on Twitter by a conservative political activist with 245,000 followers, who sells merchandise and produces a subscription-based podcast described as "comedy + journalism."

The report from the oversight committee also rejected the idea that further audits are needed of the state's 2020 presidential election.

"Most of the rigorous debate over additional audits comes from fears surrounding the technology used and its vulnerabilities as allegedly demonstrated in Antrim County," Committee Chairman Ed McBroom (R-Vulcan) wrote in a letter included in the report. "Without any evidence to validate those fears, another audit, a so-called forensic audit, is not justifiable."

The results of the inquiry were eight months in the making and approved by all four Republican committee members —McBroom, Committee Majority Vice Chairwoman Lana Theis (R-Brighton) and Sen. John Bizon (R-Battle Creek).

The report was not released in time to hold sway over a recent decision by Cheboygan County Commissioners, however.

On Tuesday commissioners sent a letter to Jonathan Brater, director of the state's Bureau of Elections, seeking a hand recount of ballots cast in Cheboygan County's 2020 presidential election citing concerns by constituents.

The letter questions whether the county's Dominion Voting Systems equipment was connected to the internet and whether an "unauthorized computer" manipulated the vote — issues shared nationally on social media by conspiracy theorists and repeatedly debunked.

Many members of the crowd gathered in Antrim County Wednesday held professionally printed signs supporting Guy and the integrity of the county's election staff.

LuAnne Cooper brought a hand-printed sign, with white letters on pink paper that simply said, "I love democracy."

Cooper said she supports several activist political groups, but that she was attending as a local voter and not on behalf of any organization.

"I am a member of many of those groups but I'm here because I live in Bellaire," Cooper said. "I'm here to support the people and the families of Bellaire."

The gathering was brief — it lasted less than an hour —and Guy, who declined official comment citing ongoing litigation, said she planned to go back to work once the small crowd had dispersed.

She said she planned to spend the rest of the day on going over COVID-19 reimbursement funding for the county's ambulance service, but first she was taking her staff and the visiting clerks out to lunch for burgers at the Bellaire Bar.

"It's a work day for us, like any other day," Guy said.