‌‌Michigan GOPers Are Quietly Replacing Board Members Who Certify The Vote

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Hello from Tuesday evening. The Franchise was pushed back due to Indigenous People’s Day, which means we have eight whole days of voting rights news to discuss, starting with an alarming report out of Michigan.

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Alright, let’s dig in.

Michigan GOPers Are Quietly Replacing Board Members Who Certify The Vote

One of the surreal parts of covering voting rights on a national scale is the knowledge that, all around the country, there are stories unfolding just out of one’s view.

The Detroit News broke one of those stories this week: “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 effort, the News reports, is focused on bipartisan county-level canvassing boards. In eight of the 11 largest counties, Republican officials are attempting to replace their own party’s representatives. In half of those affected counties, the incumbent Republicans wanted to be re-nominated but weren't, the News reported. These canvassing boards certify the election results, which, you may recall, was sort of a big deal in 2020. 

The new nominees include Hima Kolanagireddy, apparently the same Hima Kolanagireddy who was one of Rudy Giuliani’s witnesses, and Victoria Bishop, whose husband hosted an event with MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell. In Macomb, the only Republican nominee for the gig called for “military tribunals” to examine the 2020 vote.

About Those Shredded Registrations In Fulton County, Georgia

News broke Monday that two election workers in Fulton County, GEORGIA had been fired for allegedly shredding 300 registrations. 
 

Serious news, to be sure, but: The county has around 800,000 registered voters. The alleged offenders were flagged by their own colleagues in the elections office. And the office quickly went public with the development after firing the perpetrators and alerting the district attorney.
 

Nonetheless, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger cranked the volume to 11: “After 20 years of documented failure in Fulton County elections, Georgians are tired of waiting to see what the next embarrassing revelation will be,” he said, noting that state officials are currently reviewing Fulton County’s election practices in anticipation of a possible state takeover of the county’s elections, which cover the bulk of Atlanta. (This potential takeover is one part of Georgia's new voting restrictions package, SB 202.)

Raffensperger wasn’t alone: The GOP’s top lawyer, Justin Riemer, accused Democrats of “circling the wagons while Republicans are trying to actually fix things for Fulton County voters.”

Election officials and experts I spoke to urged caution before rushing to judgment.

“It is a small number of their voters, and the voters have the opportunity to check online, verify that their applications have been processed, and then, if things went wrong in that process, they can request a provisional ballot at the polling place,” Bartow County Elections Supervisor Joseph Kirk, a member of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Task Force on Elections, told me.

“The fact that this was reported by their coworkers shows how their coworkers feel about it,” Kirk added. “People in my profession take this very seriously.”

Tammy Patrick, a Senior Advisor to the Elections program at Democracy Fund, said incidents like this one are “VERY rare,” and the reasons behind them are typically simple misunderstandings or human error.

Jessica Corbitt, a spokesperson for Fulton County, told me she couldn’t speak to Raffensperger’s response. But, she added, “I can say that we identified an issue with the actions of these employees, took immediate action after a preliminary review, and contacted Secretary of State’s office to request that they conduct an investigation.” 

Correction: This post initially referred incorrectly to fired election workers in Fulton County, Georgia, who were fired for allegedly shredding registration forms.

Around The States

A federal judge in FLORIDA has cleared the way for challengers of the state’s new election laws – which were signed as part of a Fox News exclusive – to move forward in their legal efforts. 
 

When they passed their voting restrictions package earlier this year, TEXAS Republicans included a surprise: They lowered the criminal penalties for certain infractions. Well, state Senate Republicans have now approved a bill reinstating those harsher penalties. The lower penalties, misdemeanors instead of felonies, “went under the radar” at first, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) said last month. There's a potential roadblock, though: House Speaker Dade Phelan (R) has said he doesn’t want to “re-litigate” the law.

Three people have been charged with voter fraud in MICHIGAN -- though only one of the cases was caught after a double vote was cast. 
 

The New York Times framed the story well last week: Indulging nonsense about the 2020 election, particularly through “audits” and new legislation, is now a mainstream GOP talking point. Therefore, gubernatorial elections in swing states with Democratic governors and Republican-controlled legislatures -- think MICHIGAN, WISCONSIN and PENNSYLVANIA -- are therefore even more important for Democrats. (And democrats.)

The Latest In Audit Mania

A protest pushing for a “forensic audit” of MICHIGAN’s 2020 results Tuesday, an event endorsed by Trump, bore some familiar markers -- like the QAnon reference of an approaching “storm.” Several hundred people seemed to be in attendance, at least.

Former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, the lead auditor appointed by WISCONSIN Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) to review the 2020 election, said he didn't know how elections work. Then, he compared a reporter to Goebbels.

A county clerk in OREGON is being bombarded with calls for an “audit” of the 2020 vote after his jurisdiction, Marion County, swung from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. Some of the calls, the clerk says, are threats that he’s reported to the FBI. This is part of a pattern, the Salem Statesman Journal reports.
 

We wrote last week about the IDAHO secretary of state’s office mercilessly debunking Mike Lindell’s claims of universal election cheating. Now, that state has even more debunking evidence, after recounting even more votes. And they have company: OKLAHOMA Election Secretary Paul Ziriax says Lindell’s accusations were found to be “entirely without merit.”

VIRGINIA’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Glen Youngkin, is trying to thread the needle: Not too Trumpy, but Trumpy enough to turn out the base. So yes, he says, Biden won 2020 (this is considered a moderate position). But on the other hand, he has now called for the state to “just audit the voting machines.” (The state already does a limited, random check.) In the end, this is a political scuffle in a tough election – except voters' trust in the process ends up taking a hit.

CNN: 'Cannot wait for Washington:' Voting rights activists scramble to overcome new restrictions ahead of November elections

AZ Republic: “New Arizona audit review shows Cyber Ninjas’ ballot count off by 312K”
 

Pennsylvania Capital-Star: National, state Democrats attempt to intervene in lawsuit over Pa.’s vote-by-mail law

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