‌‌‌‌‌Michigan Canvassing Board Republicans Reject Abortion, Voting Rights Measures

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Hello readers!

First, some professional news: After six amazing years with Talking Points Memo, this is your newsletter author’s last week on the team. Later this month, I will start a new job as a reporter on HuffPost’s national desk covering mis- and disinformation.

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Alright, let’s dig in.

Republicans On Michigan Canvassing Board Block Abortion, Voting Rights Ballot Measures

The two Republicans on MICHIGAN’s four-person state canvassing board – the same one Donald Trump unsuccessfully pressured to reject the 2020 election results – rejected ballot initiatives to enshrine abortion rights and expand voting rights, deadlocking with the board’s two Democrats and sending the issue to the state’s Supreme Court.

Both measures had more than enough valid signatures, but the board’s Republicans took issue with things like, in the case of the abortion initiative, the typeface in the proposed ballot measure language: Tony Daunt, a Republican chair of the canvassing board, called the spacing between words “egregious.” (Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel urged the state’s Supreme Court to reject this quibble, comparing the ballot measure’s irregular spacing to that in original hand-written copies of the U.S. Constitution.)
 

The two Republicans rejected the voting rights initiative because it allegedly failed to fully articulate which sections of the Michigan Constitution would be impacted by its passage.
 

In 2020, then-Republican board member Aaron Van Langevelde ultimately sided with the board’s two Democrats in a vote to certify Joe Biden’s win in the state. The state GOP subsequently opted not to renominate Van Langevelde for the position last year. Norman Shinkle, who abstained from the 2020 vote, later resigned. So both Republicans currently on the board are post-2020 appointees.

The board also played a role in Michigan’s massive signature forgery scandal earlier this year, ultimately preventing, in another party-line vote, several Republican gubernatorial candidates and others from being placed on the primary ballot. 

Wisconsin Man Charged With Voter Fraud After Stunt

A right-wing activist from WISCONSIN was charged with voter fraud and unauthorized use of personally identifiable information after he requested absentee ballots in the names of state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) and Racine Mayor Cory Mason (D), part of a stunt attempting to make a point about absentee ballot security.

“In hindsight, I’d do it all over again a hundred times over,” Harry Wait told The Washington Post, adding: “What I did is a matter of record. I provided the DOJ with everything they need to prosecute me. And I will stand in front of 12 jurors and see if they agree with the DOJ.”
 

Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling (R), rather than arresting Wait when he carried out the stunt in July, thanked and celebrated the activist.

Schmaling is affiliated with the far-right “constitutional sheriffs” movement and has called for criminal charges to be filed against the majority of Wisconsin’s Elections Commission. 

Around The States

After an ALASKA Democrat won a special election for the state’s sole congressional seat amid Republican-on-Republican bickering between her two opponents, right-wingers raced to attack ranked-choice voting, which a majority of Alaskans approved in a 2020 ballot measure. 
 

The ARIZONA attorney general’s office repeatedly sought the evidence of the vast alleged election fraud ring presented in the “2000 Mules” conspiracy theory film. The response from the 2000 Mules crew? Crickets, emails reported by Axios (and before them, this local conservative outlet) show. Ten out of ten on the “womp, womp” meter.
 

IOWA Sen. Chuck Grassley is the tenth Republican to co-sponsor the bipartisan proposal to reform the Electoral Count Act, potentially marking a filibuster-proof majority. 
 

A three-judge panel of federal judges in TEXAS delayed a lawsuit over gerrymandering until next year following “a flurry of disputes over discovery,” the Texas Tribune reports. Plaintiffs allege that state legislative and congressional maps are gerrymandered and discriminatory toward people of color, who made up 95% of Texas’ population growth since 2010, a population increase not reflected in the redistricting process. 
 

One interesting part of Joe Biden’s speech Thursday: “I will not stand by and watch — I will not — the will of the American people be overturned by wild conspiracy theories and baseless evidence-free claims of fraud. I will not stand by and watch elections in this country stolen by people who simply refuse to accept that they lost. I will not stand by and watch the most fundamental freedom in this country, the freedom to vote and have your vote counted, and be taken from you and the American people.” It’s not clear what this means in practice, though the Justice Department does have an existing Election Threats Task Force. 

The Latest In Election Sabotage

A jury found the Seminole County, FLORIDA Republican Party Chairman guilty of using his cousin’s name on a contribution to benefit a “ghost candidate” meant to siphon votes from a Democrat.

In GEORGIA, surveillance video shows the moment a local clerk allowed operatives working with Sidney Powell into a county building to access election equipment. 
 

Also in that state, top Trump allies Michael Flynn and Patrick Byrne are backing a challenge to tens of thousands of Georgians’ eligibility to vote.
 

In a first, a state judge in NEW MEXICO ruled that Otero County Commissioner, “Cowboys for Trump” founder and Jan. 6 defendant Couy Griffin was disqualified from holding office because he took an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and subsequently participated in the Jan. 6 attack, which the judge said constituted “an ‘insurrection’ against the Constitution of the United States,” in violation of the 14th Amendment. 
 

After he won his race against a no-name, Trump-backed Republican primary challenger, WISCONSIN Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) fired 2020 election “investigator” Michael Gableman and, last week, withdrew the subpoenas Gableman was using to compel testimony from various public officials – essentially ending the last remnant of the “investigation.” 

Miami Herald: ‘Money talks’: DeSantis goes after small-scale voter crimes, is silent on FPL and Matrix
 

HuffPost: GOP Senate Candidate Scrubs Election ‘Integrity’ Section From Website
 

Bipartisan Policy Center: Tech Company 2022 Midterm Election Announcements
 

FiveThirtyEight: More Than 1 In 2 Americans Will Have An Election Denier On The Ballot This Fall

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