A glitch in software used to tabulate ballots in Antrim County, Michigan caused at least 6,000 Republican votes to be counted as Democrat, according to Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox.
The miscalculation, Cox said in a press conference, was first reported by a county clerk. A short investigation revealed that 47 counties in Michigan may have also suffered from a similar glitch with the same software, which could have caused some red counties to rake in a higher number of Democrat votes than usual.
“Antrim County had to hand count all of the ballots, and these counties that use the software need to closely examine their results for similar discrepancies,” Cox said. “The people of Michigan deserve a transparent and open process.”
Some of us flagged the Antrim County numbers on Nov 4. Michigan clearly needs a re-count. https://t.co/L9Bx6PhE5T
— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) November 6, 2020
Michigan, a battleground state worth 16 electoral points, was called for Biden on Wednesday by many news outlets. This win surprised some because President Donald J. Trump won the state in 2016.
National GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel also spoke at the press conference shedding light on election issues in the key state, saying that 2,000 Republican ballots were marked as Democrat in Oakland County due to a “clerical error” which wrongly gave the race to the Democrat candidate.
“The American people need to have confidence in our elections, right now we don’t have that because, across the country, Democrat officials are shutting down transparency, especially here in the state of Michigan,” she said. “Democrats are damaging the country in the process of a smooth transition of power by not allowing a transparent process.”
McDaniel also said that Republican poll watchers in various locations were denied their ability to monitor the counting of ballots, that Wayne County alone has over “100 incident reports of irregularities,” and that a whistleblower came forward to confirm that some election workers were asked to illegally date certain ballots as received on or before election day.
“We need to pursue these irregularities and we need people to be patient and give us the time to investigate,” McDaniel said. “These are serious allegations of changing the date on balance and refusing to let people observe in a meaningful way an election of this magnitude.”
We have documented irregularities in Michigan.
In Wayne County, poll watchers were kept in the dark with blocked windows & padlocked doors.
At the TCF Center, a whistleblower said their supervisor asked them to illegally put dates on ballots. pic.twitter.com/VX5Lt0MYuK
— Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) November 6, 2020
These newly surfaced reports of potential election fraud and violations merely add to the credibility of other reports of suspicious activity in Michigan surrounding the 2020 election such as election officials expelling Republican poll challengers from counting rooms, illegally filling out ballots, and in Detroit, and covering up windows into counting rooms to prevent legal peering and observation.
“We have confirmed evidence that Democratic election officials have violated state law,” Phill Kline, former Kansas attorney general and now an attorney for the nonprofit Amistad Project, previously told The Federalist, explaining that his organization filed a lawsuit over reported voter fraud in Detroit.
The Trump campaign also filed a lawsuit in Michigan on Wednesday, making similar claims that Republican election observers were stopped from overseeing ballot counting despite state laws ensuring otherwise.
