By Jack Phillips
Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel and other GOP officials said the fight over the presidential election isn’t over, saying that 47 counties in the state may have used software that was detected to have allocated votes to Democrat Joe Biden instead of President Donald Trump in one county.
“In Antrim County, ballots were counted for Democrats that were meant for Republicans causing a 6,000-vote swing against our candidates,” Michigan GOP Chairwoman Laura Cox said in a news conference Friday. “The county clerk came forward and said tabulating software glitched and caused a miscalculation of the votes.”
Cox added: “Since then, we have now discovered that 47 counties use this same software in the same capacity. Antrim County had to hand count all of the ballots, and these counties that use this software needs to closely examine their results for similar discrepancies.”
A number of news outlets, including The Associated Press and Decision Desk, have declared Michigan for Democratic nominee Joe Biden. Biden is currently leading Trump by about 146,000 votes.
After the discrepancy was found in Antrim County, election officials questioned the results. They said the problem was identified by local election authorities and reviewed Wednesday, according to the Detroit News.
In one instance in Oakland County, a computer error led officials to declare Democrat Melanie Hartman the winner before they reversed it and declared incumbent Adam Kochenderfer, a Republican, the winner of the Oakland County’s 15th county commission District, the Detroit Free Press reported.
“I thought that was that,” Kochenderfer said. “Those were the results, and I said I would not seek a recount.”
Oakland County Director of Elections Joe Rozell told the paper that the error was due to a computer issue at a city clerk’s office. He didn’t elaborate on the issue or if it was the same software used in Antrim County.
“A computer issue in Rochester Hills caused them to send us results for seven precincts as both precinct votes and absentee votes. They should only have been sent to us as absentee votes,” Rozell said.
The RNC has deployed legal teams to Michigan. No lawsuit has yet to be announced over the software.
“We will not give up on this process until every last issue has been resolved,” McDaniel said in the news conference.
Cox and McDaniel also alleged that there were irregularities in Detroit, asserting that Republican poll-watchers were denied access to the vote-counting process in some places.
The Michigan Board of Elections has not yet responded to a request for comment about Cox’s claims.
The Michigan Democratic Party issued a statement Friday following the GOP’s claims of misconduct.
“The clerks in Michigan have done an incredible job this, and every election cycle, despite little to no support from the Republican-controlled legislature,” said Party Chair Lavora Barnes to MLive. “We join local clerks in calling for reforms to the election system that will decrease legislative barriers and provide clerks additional resources to allow them to do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.”
