The Michigan Secretary of State’s office strongly rebuked Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel’s claims of ballot counting irregularities in the state Friday evening.

In a lengthy statement, the department released a bulleted point-by-point list refuting various allegations made by McDaniel Friday afternoon about the integrity of Michigan’s voting system, saying the claims are “false” and “have no merit.”

“Michigan’s elections were conducted fairly, effectively and transparently and are an accurate reflection of the will of Michigan voters,” the first bullet point reads.

Unofficial results show former Vice President Joe Biden defeated President Donald Trump in Michigan by more than 146,000 votes — well over the 10,704 vote margin Trump won Michigan with against Hillary Clinton in 2016. The Associated Press and other outlets have called the race in Biden’s favor.


The statement addressed claims made Friday afternoon by top state and national Republican officials that Democratic officials oversaw a “shameful” attempt to block Republicans from serving as election challengers during absentee ballot counting in Oakland County and in Detroit, as well as insinuations that initial inaccurate reports in Antrim County were cause for broader concern. No evidence was offered to substantiate the claims.

“As Detroit officials have stated, hundreds of challengers from both parties were inside their absent voter counting board all afternoon and evening. And even after some left, there were always challengers from both parties in the room,” the statement reads. “Further, some windows were covered to stop those outside from filming the people and private information in the counting board, while other windows were left uncovered to ensure additional transparency.”


The department’s statement also echoed comments from Detroit elections advisor Chris Thomas, the former Michigan Director of Elections, who earlier Friday addressed claims that he directed a worker to backdate a number of ballots. In his own statement, he called the allegations “unfounded.”

“The accusations are wrong and reveal the person making them doesn’t know Michigan’s election process,” he said. “The scenario described actually shows a process designed to eliminate errors working to do just that.”

Thomas said some ballot envelopes would not scan into the Absent Voter Poll List and the Qualified Voter File (QVF) was reviewed to try to figure out the problem. When a worker is entering a ballot envelope, the last step is for the worker to enter the date stamped on the envelop and hit the “save” button. After that, a “4th step position” is supposed to become visible on the screen to show that all steps were taken, but that didn’t happen in these cases.

The workers were told by the supervisors to review the envelopes using the QVF, Thomas said, and told that if it was a clerical error, to enter the date the ballot was received in the satellite office and hit save. The ballot was then placed in the Absent Voter Poll List so it could be processed and counted.



None of these ballots were received after 8 p.m. on Election Day,” Thomas said. “Most were received on Monday, November 2nd – the busiest day for the satellite offices.”

Thomas also said that the entire process was discussed and demonstrated for several Republican challengers, who then chose to not file a challenge to those ballots.

“In the heat of the moment responsible officials should avoid denigrating the election process without verifying their information,” Thomas said.


During the Friday press conference in Oakland County organized by Trump Victory — a combined effort of the Republican National Committee, Trump campaign, and Michigan Republican Party — McDaniel and Michigan GOP Chair Laura Cox said they don’t not have faith in the ongoing process of canvassing the election results. She said “hundreds” of reports have been collected by the GOP, including a whistleblower’s account that was referred to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Michigan.

The RNC chair accused the Detroit officials and Benson of misleading reporters when asked about the situation in TCF Center. Republicans complained that the windows of the TCF Center were obscured as protesters tried to enter the building.


Michigan Republican Party Chairman Laura Cox expressed concern about a software glitch in Antrim County that caused results to be inaccurately reported. The county caught the mistake on election night and recounted each ballot by hand.

Cox said 47 counties used the same software.

“These counties that used this software need to closely examine their results for similar discrepancies,” Cox said.

The Secretary of State statement described the erroneous reporting from Antrim County as an “accidental error” by the Antrim County Clerk, who the department said did not update the software used to collect voting machine data and report unofficial results.


“The equipment and software did not malfunction and all ballots were properly tabulated,” the statement reads. “In order to report unofficial results, county clerks use election management system software to combine the electronic totals from tabulators and submit a report of unofficial results. Because the clerk did not update software, even though the tabulators counted all the ballots correctly, those accurate results were not combined properly when the clerk reported unofficial results.”


The correct results “always were and continue to be reflected on the tabulator totals tape and on the ballots themselves,” according to the department’s statement. “Even if the error in the reported unofficial results had not been quickly noticed, it would have been identified during the county canvass.”

Any reports that the county had to or will have to hand count every ballot is “completely false," the statement continued.

Rochester Hills City Clerk Tina Barton also called out a claim McDaniel made Friday that 2,000 Republican ballots were found Thursday night that had been given to Democrats due to a clerical error, taking to Twitter to say the characterization was inaccurate.

“The accusation that 2,000 ballots were found is categorically false," she said in a video posted on social media. "As a Republican, I am disturbed that this is intentionally being mischaracterized to undermine the election process.”



https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.mlive.com/politics/2020/11/michigan-secretary-of-state-gop-claims-of-ballot-counting-irregularities-have-no-merit.html%3foutputType=amp




We should always try to be fair and balanced in reporting news.

lalasticlala

Trump is only chasing shadow.

Thank goodness, USA have good judicial system...

They are waiting for Trump to bring his trash case so that they can help him to dumb it to where it belongs which is Dustbin

helinues:
Trump is only chasing shadow.

Thank goodness, USA have good judicial system...

They are waiting for Trump to bring his trash case so that they can help him to dumb it to where it belongs which is Dustbin

Within the past 3 days he has mentioned the Supreme Court more than a dozen times. He seems to think that the conservative majority will favor him without question.