Many of the conspiracy theories contending the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump emanated from Michigan, and more specifically Antrim County—dead voters, mystery ballot dumps, rigged voting machines.
These allegations and others provided fodder for The Big Lie and created a fund-raising apparatus for groups like the Allied Security Operations Group that has led an unsuccessful legal challenge of the outcome.
Joe Biden scored a narrow victory in the state—51 percent to 48 percent, or 158,000 votes—and was awarded the state’s 16 electoral votes. Trump and his supporters have falsely claimed he won Michigan and the election.
Now a Republican-controlled Michigan committee has released its report on the election with the conclusion that there is “no evidence of widespread or systemic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.”
The committee conducted 28 hours of hearings and listened to testimony from nearly 100 individuals. It reviewed thousands of subpoenaed documents and evidence gathered by Senate staff, and it reached the conclusion that the results are accurate.
Committee chairman, Republican Edward McBroom, concluded, “I feel confident to assert the results of the Michigan election are accurately represented by the certified and audited results.”
The report did find there were mistakes made in Antrim County. Most notably, unofficial results election night showed Biden beating Trump by nearly 3,300 votes. However, those numbers were wrong because “votes received from polling places on election night did not transfer into their respective spreadsheet columns correctly.”
Election workers quickly determined those results did not match the official votes printed by the tabulators. Once the cause of the error was found, the ballots were re-tabulated and two days later the accurate results were posted showing Trump won Antrim County by nearly 3,800 votes. The results were later confirmed by a canvas and then again by a recount.
However, the early discrepancy was enough to set off wild theories about hacked Dominion voting machines and mystery ballots that switched votes from Trump to Biden. The committee found none of those allegations was accurate.
“The committee is appalled at what can only be deduced as a willful ignorance or avoidance of this proof perpetuated by some leading to such speculation,” according to the report.
The findings will win Senator McBroom no favors among conspiracy theorists, chief among them Donald Trump. He accused McBroom and Michigan Senate Majority Leader Republican Mike Shirkey of “doing everything possible to stop voter audits in order to hide the truth.”
In fact, what this Republican committee has done is just the opposite; it has thoroughly investigated and confirmed the accuracy of the Michigan election. “Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan.”
Author David Stevens said, “A lie is a lie even if everyone believes it. The truth is the truth even if nobody believes it.”
The Michigan report is neither “alternate facts” nor Democratic talking points: It is the findings of a Republican-led committee charged with investigating the allegations of fraud in the election in that state. The conspiracy theories are false and to seriously consider otherwise is to continue to deny reality.