BELLAIRE, MI – Last month, Pete Hoekstra, Michigan Republican County Chair, told a crowd at a fundraising event in the Detroit suburbs that he was worried Democrats would try to “steal some votes” this year.
He said he didn’t trust Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat in charge of elections in the state.
That was inaccurate and irresponsible, and Hoekstra, a former congressman, should know better. For one thing, Benson doesn’t run elections in the state — 83 county clerks, 280 city clerks, and 1,240 township clerks do, and most of those are Republican.
For another, Michigan has long had extremely clean elections, something GOP U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rogers has more reason than most people to know, as does Democrat Barb Byrum, who as clerk in Ingham County, which includes Lansing, is responsible for votes cast and counted there.
Back in 2000, Dianne Byrum, Barb Byrum’s mother, was locked in the closest congressional race in the nation with Mike Rogers, when both were state legislators. The totals were (politely) disputed, and a recount was held. And in the end, all agreed the system worked.
Little attention was paid to that race, because that was the year of the famous, hotly disputed Presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore, and the seemingly endless Florida recount.
The race for the Lansing-era congressional seat in Michigan that year was expected to be close, but with an edge to Democrat Dianne Byrum. The seat had been held by another Democrat, Debbie Stabenow, who gave it up to run for the U.S. Senate. Republican pollster Steve Mitchell told me just before the election that he expected Bush to win Michigan, but didn’t think Rogers could take the seat.
Election night in Michigan that year started out depressing for Republicans. The Presidential race in Michigan had been expected to be close but wasn’t: Gore won easily. By early morning, it was clear that Stabenow had upset Republican U.S. Senator Spencer Abraham. Gore had defeated Bush in the congressional district, too, and Rogers was trailing.
He all but conceded, and went home to bed, only to be awoken by a phone call. Rural returns had unexpectedly put him 160 votes ahead, 145,179 to 145,019. Democrats asked for a recount. As it proceeded, the margin dropped to 88 votes, but overall, barely changed. Before it ended, Byrum conceded defeat.
Nobody charged fraud. Nobody ever questioned the integrity of Michigan elections, in fact, until Donald Trump charged that there was widespread cheating in Detroit on Election Night 2020.
Those claims were quickly proven false; President Joe Biden won the state by 154,000, with most of his margin coming from affluent and once-Republican suburban Oakland County.
However, while TV cameras were present outside the arena where Detroit ballots were being counted in 2020, the major, long-lasting threat to belief in the integrity of their elections was unfolding here in Bellaire, more than 200 miles northwest.
Antrim County is mostly rural, and heavily Republican, though Governor Gretchen Whitmer and her husband have a vacation retreat and a boat in picturesque Elk Rapids. (That was where a bunch of plotters planned to try and kidnap her.)
On Election Night 202o, Sheryl Guy, the longtime Republican County Clerk, was struggling with her computers and, because of a last-minute addition of a minor local candidate, caused a mistake that turned into a national nightmare.
A grandmother in her 60s, she admitted she was not the most computer-savvy person. Adding the extra candidate messed up the tabulation, and the totals she blearily released at 5 a.m. showed Joe Biden winning the county. Everyone felt that was impossible.
She soon corrected the totals and announced it was her fault.
But the Trump campaign seized on what happened, blamed it on the Dominion voting machines the county used, and tried to say it was part of a nationwide plan to steal the election.
There was immense pressure on Guy to blame the machines. But she gallantly refused, saying that she owned the error. As a result she got insults and death threats.
Unnerved by all that, she decided not to run for reelection. But when Republicans nominated someone whose integrity she didn’t trust, Guy decided to wage a write-in campaign.
Today, there are signs across the county urging voters to write in her name. Back in Lansing, election officials emphasize that a paper ballot exists for every vote everywhere in the state, so results can be checked, and Michigan elections cannot be stolen.
Meanwhile, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has filed criminal charges against four voters who voted twice in this year’s August primary (once in person, once absentee) and three election workers who she said helped them do so.
If convicted, they could all face serious prison time. It is not known what party the accused voted for, though two of the election workers were listed as Democrats.
Michigan officials know they are under scrutiny, and are determined to make sure November’s election is as clean as can be.
(A version of this column appeared in the Toledo Blade.)
Photo by Tiffany Tertipes on Unsplash
