Undermining Elections in Michigan – Action Needed!

By: Lisa Van Houten

The Michigan Democrat-controlled Senate just passed legislation that will ban local election boards from investigating voter fraud.

Senate Bills 603 and 604, which passed on a party-line vote of 20-18, repeals the current law that gives bipartisan county Boards of Canvassers – made up of two Democrats and two Republicans – the authority to investigate voter fraud, ballot tampering, illegal voting, and violation of elections laws.  County Boards of Canvassers certify elections, but, under these bills, if they see evidence of potential election fraud, “there’s nothing that can be done,” warn Senate Republicans, who harshly criticized the legislation.

“Senate Bill 603 ends the ability of local officials to investigate potential fraud, illegal activity, or even ballot tampering during a recount by deleting current provisions in Michigan election law that give this authority to bipartisan county boards of canvassers,” said Republican state Senator Ruth Johnson. “These are time-honored checks and balances that exist in our system.” 

Sen. Johnson previously served two terms as Michigan’s secretary of state – preceding Michigan’s current Soros-funded Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson –  so therefore Johnson recognizes the ramifications this new legislation will bring to the integrity (or lack thereof) of Michigan elections.

In essence, these bills will “sanction the potential legal ability to cheat on elections in Michigan,” warns Sen. Jim Runestad, R-White Lake.

“With the passage of their (election-fraud-enabling) Bill, there will be no future route for requesting a recount if you believe there was fraud. Under their corruption bill, candidates will be prohibited from requesting a recount if they suspect fraud and is designed to stop investigations of election fraud by the Board of Canvassers.”

“This disgusting bill will now permit clerks to recount ballots even if seals are broken on ballot containers and was essentially written by the Secretary of State who was reversed multiple times, by our Supreme Court for her illegal election decisions,” Runestad posted.

Current Michigan law prevents ballots from being recounted if a seal on a ballot container is broken.  Broken seals are evidence of potential ballot tampering.  However, if these bills become law those ballots would be counted.  In addition, Michigan’s election law currently prohibits recounting ballots in precincts where the number of votes recorded in the pollbook doesn’t match the number of votes counted.  Under SB 603 and 604, those votes would be included in a recount – despite the discrepancy.

For example, in the 2016 presidential election, more than one-third of Detroit precincts had votes that were out of balance – meaning the number of votes tabulated didn’t match the number in the pollbook.  In these heavily-Democratic precincts, voting machines recorded more votes than the number of votes tallied by workers in the pollbooks.  In the 2020 presidential election, nearly three-quarters of Detroit’s absentee ballot tallies and 46% of in-person vote tallies were out of balance.

In the 2016 recount, those out of balance votes weren’t included.  Now, if these bills become law, they will be counted – even though that’s evidence of potential fraud. 

After the 2016 presidential election, Krista Haroutunian, chairwoman of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers, stated: “There’s always going to be small problems to some degree, but we didn’t expect the degree of problem we saw in Detroit. This isn’t normal.” However, under SB 603 and 604, with no oversite, this could indeed become normal. 

In fact, these bills remove alleged fraud as a reason to request a recount of election results.  In a statement issued by Senator Johnson: “The point of a recount is to ensure the results of an election are correct and accurate and to give people confidence in those results. Right now, Michigan has 104.5% of our state’s voting-age population registered to vote. No photo ID is required to vote. We have no system to tell if someone votes in multiple states and the current secretary of state failed to remove 170,000 names from the voting rolls of people who no longer lived in the state until after she was sued.”

These bills also restrict the people’s right to challenge an election for fraud or human mistakes.  Incredibly, as conservative groups report, SB 603 would delete the word “fraud” in all 19 places where it occurs in the part of the law being amended – replacing it with the word “error!” The legislation also makes recounts more expensive, limits the circumstances when it’s permitted to file for a recount, and restricts citizens’ ability to request recounts.

Senator Runestad explains these radical efforts to undermine election integrity: “The bill changes the standard for a candidate or party to petition for a recount of election results from alleging there has been ‘mistake or fraud’ in the process to now only permitting alleging there has been an ‘error.’ So even if the candidate or Party is absolutely convinced there was fraud, this cannot be alleged or investigated.

“To boot, this Democrat’s bill makes it tougher to do a recount by doubling the recount petition fees and making it a felony for ‘interfering’ with a recount without any clear definition of what that means to open up more ‘LAWFARE.’

“If passed as is, the language is changed to prohibit a recount, investigation or audit of the conduct of an election when fraud is alleged to only a determination of the number of votes cast for one candidate or another, or a ballot question.

“Lastly, the bill says a recount could not assess the qualification of the voters participating in an election, or the manner in which ballots are applied for, or issued to voters.

“Wow isn’t that a doozy. If illegals, or dead people, or those not registered in Mich. are voting, we cannot ‘assess the qualification of those voters or the manner in which those ballots were applied for and issued to these voters.’”

Michigan is a key battleground states in the upcoming presidential election.  Currently Biden is trailing in the polls and his Democratic base seems to be abandoning him.  So, Michigan Democrats – who control the Senate, House, executive branch, secretary of state, and attorney general – are pulling out all the stops to undermine secure elections and deliver Michigan to Biden, by any means necessary.

These bills now move to the Michigan House.  If you are a Michigander, urge your state representative to oppose these bills.

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