Trump is still pinning his hopes on one last lawsuit in Michigan to overturn the presidential election
REUTERS/Cheriss May/File Photo
- President Donald Trump keeps tweeting about a "report" in a Michigan court case that "shows massive fraud" revealing he won.
- The report, published by Trump allies, reveals nothing of the sort.
- It was filed to a Michigan court as part of a case over Antrim County's closely decided marijuana ballot measure, not its presidential election results, which Trump won anyway.
- The report is the origin of the "68.5% error rate" figure Trump has tweeted about, though it offers no evidence for the claim.
- It was written by the same person who mixed up Michigan and Minnesota in another infamous election lawsuit, brought by conspiracy theorist and ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell.
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Joe Biden is the President-elect. Every single state has certified its election results. The Electoral College has voted. The Supreme Court has turned down every 2020 election challenge. Around 40 lawsuits brought by President Donald Trump and his allies have failed in lower courts.
But die-hard Trumpers are still holding out for one more legal battle - though it's more of a footnote.
In the small county of Antrim in Michigan, a judge ordered the release of a "report" on voting equipment.
"The highly respected Michigan Judge released this epic report. True all over the Country. This Fake Election can no longer stand. Get moving Republicans. Big Swing State Win!" Trump tweeted on Tuesday, six weeks after he lost the 2020 presidential election.
On Monday, Judge Kevin Elsenheimer, a Michigan district judge and former Republican lawmaker, ordered the release of a "forensic report." It was created by Allied Security Operations Group, a Dallas-based group that has helped Trump and his allies with lawsuits seeking to overturn election results.
The report, which analyzed the county's voting machines, said the election machines from Dominion Voting Systems had numerous errors and that the county's results should not have been certified, according to the Detroit Free Press. And because the rest of the state uses machines from the same company, the report argues, all of Michigan's results shouldn't have been certified, either.
Michigan's results have already been certified, and the case where the report was filed has nothing to do with the presidential election. It was filed to scrutinize one village's closely decided ballot measure on permitting a marijuana dispensary.
Russell Ramsland, an Allied Security Operations Group employee, signed the report. Ramsland became infamous several weeks ago after signing an affidavit in support of ex-Trump lawyer Sidney Powell's efforts to overturn the election results.
In that other affidavit, he mixed up voting data between Michigan and Minnesota. All of Powell's lawsuits have failed in court, and the City of Detroit has moved to have her banned from practicing law in Michigan.
The Antrim County report also makes numerous factual errors, as the Detroit Free Press points out.
- Ramsland wrote that Dominion machines in Antrim "observed an error rate of 68.05%" but does not explain what he's talking about, and state officials say they have no idea what he's referencing. President Donald Trump played up the apparently invented number in a tweet.
- The report references system capabilities for ranked-choice voting, which Michigan does not use.
- It says "The allowable election error rate established by the Federal Election Commission guidelines is of 1 in 250,000 ballots (.0008%)." In fact, the FEC has no such guideline and regulates campaign finance, not election software. Dominion's election machines are certified by the Election Assistance Commission, which does regulate such software.
"[The report] makes a series of unsupported conclusions, ascribes motives of fraud and obfuscation to processes that are easily explained as routine election procedures or error corrections, and suggests without explanation that elements of election software not used in Michigan are somehow responsible for tabulation or reporting errors that are either nonexistent or easily explained," Michigan Elections Director Jonathan Brater said in a court filing.
Dominion also rejected the claims made in the report. Testifying under oath before Michigan lawmakers Tuesday, Dominion CEO John Poulos said they were meant to sow "doubt and confusion over the 2020 presidential election."
"The disinformation campaign being waged against Dominion defies facts or logic," he said."To date, no one has produced credible evidence of fraud or vote switching on Dominion systems because these things simply have not occurred."
Dominion has also been the subject of a related conspiracy theory, advanced by Powell and Rudy Giuliani, who represents the Trump campaign in election lawsuits. That conspiracy theory claims the company has hidden ties to a different election technology company that developed software to secretly switch votes from Trump to Biden - a method rooted in a decade-old Venezuelan election used to support the now-dead president Hugo Chavez.
Representatives for the Allied Security Operations Group didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. The report was released with the consent of state and county officials. Judge Elsenheimer initially kept the report under a protective order, but state officials said any attempt to keep it private would be seen as a cover-up.
"Let's be clear: Michigan's Nov. 3 general election in Michigan and across the country was the most secure in the nation's history," Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said in a statement. "There continues to be no evidence of widespread fraud, as affirmed by state and federal agencies including Attorney General William Barr, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency."
Trump falsely said the report produced a result that would swing the election.
"WOW. This report shows massive fraud. Election changing result!" he falsely tweeted Monday.
If the report changed the results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump would only increase his loss margin.
He won Antrim County by about 3,800 votes out of 16,000 cast.
He lost the state of Michigan overall by about 155,000 votes.
Even if Trump had won Michigan and its 16 Electoral College votes, he would still lose to Biden, who won 306 electoral votes overall.
- Read more:
- The city of Detroit is trying to get Sidney Powell banned from court for her conspiracy theory election lawsuits
- Trump's lawsuits are trying to throw out votes in counties with more Black people - even when they played by the same election rules as predominantly white ones
- Trump and Republican officials have won zero out of at least 40 lawsuits they've filed since Election Day
- Judges striking down and dismissing Trump's election lawsuits keep asking: Why'd you wait so long?
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