Michigan GOP-led Senate report finds no fraud in 2020 election

A report on a Michigan Senate investigation into the state’s 2020 election procedures and results released on Wednesday found that they were not tainted by fraud and the race was stolen from Donald Trump, rebutting two claims Trump and his allies have made in an effort to steal the state’s 16 Electoral College votes.

The review, conducted by the Republican-led Senate Oversight Committee and released by its chair, state Sen. Edward McBroom, is the latest look into 2020 election results that once again dispels the lies Trump has continued to tell that the contest was rife with fraud and that he should have won.

“This Committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election,” the committee said.

It began its review on Nov. 7, 2020, the same day news networks called the election for Joe Biden.

The probe debunked numerous allegations made by Trump and his supporters.

No, thousands of dead people did not vote in Detroit

The review found that claims that dead people voted in the election were untrue.

In fact, it found that just two people who were dead appeared to have voted.

According to the report:

The first individual was a 118-year-old man whose son has the same name and lives at the same residence. The Committee found there was no fraud in this instance but was instead a clerical error made due to the identical name. The second individual was a 92-year-old woman who died four days before the November 2020 election. Research showed she had submitted her completed absentee ballot prior to the November 2020 election and prior to her death.

No, hundreds of thousands of unsolicited absentee ballots were not sent out

In Michigan, voters were sent absentee ballot applications and had to fill them out and return them in order to receive mail-in ballots.

A group calling itself the Voter Integrity Project claimed that nearly 290,000 “illegal votes” were cast by people who received unsolicited absentee ballots.

The investigation looked into this claim and determined, “There was no evidence presented to the Committee indicating that hundreds of thousands of absentee voter ballots were mailed to Michigan voters without previously being requested.”

No, votings machines did not switch votes in Antrim County

A favorite conspiracy theory of Trump supporters is that votes in heavily Republican Antrim County were switched from Trump to Biden.

The theory was debunked shortly after the 2020 election.

But Trump supporters have not let it go, with Trump himself touting a since-failed lawsuit that demanded an audit of the county’s results.

The investigation found that initially there had been a tabulation error in the county. But that error was fixed, and corrected vote totals were used in the certification of Michigan’s results.

“Multiple checks were easily able to rectify the situation and later, a complete hand recount validated the original, official results as accurate,” the report found.

Ultimately, the report concluded, “Citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan.”

Michigan’s Democratic secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said she is “grateful for@SenEdMcBroom’s commitment to the truth.

“My hope is that his fellow GOP lawmakers follow his lead, affirm the integrity of our elections, cease attempts to deceive citizens with misinformation and abandon legislation based on lies that undermine our democracy,” Benson tweeted.

However, Republican lawmakers in Michigan are still pushing for voter suppression legislation. Because Michigan’s Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would veto bills making it harder to vote, Republicans are looking to implement a “citizen-initiated law,” using a ballot initiative to pass legislation that would not be subject to gubernatorial veto.

The measures would make it harder to vote by banning ballot drop boxes, requiring ID to vote by mail, and forcing election officials to conduct signature-matching reviews on absentee ballots in public meetings.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.