But it doesn’t change a thing …
In a highly anticipated report released Wednesday, the Republican-led Michigan Senate Oversight Committee rebutted former President Donald Trump’s voter fraud claims, debunking allegations of malfeasance in the state’s election last fall and affirming that Joe Biden was victorious.
The report is the product of an eight-month inquiry and concludes there was no basis or evidence to support the Trump campaign’s repeated claims that the election results failed to reflect the will of the voters.
“As is often the case, the truth is not as attractive or as immediately desirable as the lies and the lies contain elements of truth,” state Sen. Ed McBroom, the Republican chairman of the committee that investigated the election, said in a statement that accompanied the report. “We must all remember: ‘extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof’ and ‘claiming to find something extraordinary requires first eliminating the ordinary.'”
The report, which was supported by every Republican on the committee, was clear: “This Committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.”
Biden won Michigan by 154,000 votes, a 3 percentage-point victory over Trump. The election results had already been affirmed by court rulings, state canvassers and earlier audits completed by the Michigan secretary of state.
Good news right? That ought to put an end to a lot of this Big Lie bullshit. Republicans have agreed the Michigan vote count was fair, there was no “late night” ballot dump of illegal Biden votes and all the Black people in Detroit didn’t steal the election. Huzzah.
Sadly, that doesn’t mean a thing:
McBroom said he feels confident the state’s results were accurate following his review, though he has continued to offer support for Republican-led voting law changes. McBroom said many of the claims of malfeasance were the result of “a misunderstanding or an outright deception.”
“Also, sources must lose credibility when it is shown they promote falsehoods, even more when they never take accountability for those falsehoods,” he said. “At this point, I feel confident to assert the results of the Michigan election are accurately represented by the certified and audited results.”
That is incoherent. These people will supposedly lose credibility except for the fact that he supports their push to change the laws so they can rig the vote in their favor in the future.
Still, I guess this is important for the history books is we manage to keep these people from passing laws that erase everything they don’t like in them:
The report singled out the false claims of fraud in Antrim County, a small county in the northern part of the state where human error by election officials initially led to results showing Biden winning the county. The error was quickly corrected, and the certified results showed a substantial Trump victory there. But the rectified error has fueled false claims of fraud in the state.
“The Committee recommends the attorney general consider investigating those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends,” the report said, adding, “The many hours of testimony before the Committee showed these claims are unjustified and unfair to the people of Antrim County and the state of Michigan.”
In his statement, McBroom said, “All compelling theories that sprang forth from the rumors surrounding Antrim County are diminished so significantly as for it to be a complete waste of time to consider them further.”
Trump’s backers have alleged that the election technology used by elections officials there may have changed votes or otherwise incorrectly processed the results. Those claims have contributed to a push from some on the far right to conduct an Arizona-style partisan ballot review in the state.
“Most of the rigorous debate over additional audits comes from fears surrounding the technology used and its vulnerabilities as allegedly demonstrated in Antrim County,” McBroom said. “Without any evidence to validate those fears, another audit, a so-called forensic audit, is not justifiable.”
Here he goes again with the bullshit:
“Michigan’s already completed post-election audit and risk-limiting audit are also far more substantive than Arizona’s standard audit,” he added. “However, I am keeping a close eye on the legislatively-initiated forensic audit in Arizona and will continue to ask questions regarding other election issues I feel are not settled.”
Right. That chinese bamboo in the ballot thing is something they really need to keep an eye on.
Nonetheless, they found zero proof of anything:
The report examined, point by point, other theories of election fraud promoted by Trump and his supporters, including votes by dead people. The report said such claims were researched and the committee “concluded that most were false.”
“There were two claims of deceased individuals casting votes that were found to be true; one was a clerical error while the other was a timing issue,” the report said. “The Committee concluded that none of these constituted fraudulent election activities or manipulations.”
The committee also found no evidence “indicating that hundreds of thousands of absentee voter ballots were mailed to Michigan voters without previously being requested,” though it recommended that the secretary of state discontinue mailing out unsolicited ballot applications.
The report also addressed claims of late-night “ballot dumps” in Detroit. The basis of one claim was a video that actually showed a local news photographer hauling equipment, not ballots. A second video, the committee said, depicted the unloading of absentee ballots from a van around 3:30 a.m. after Election Day, but there was no evidence the ballots were fraudulent.
Had ballots been fraudulently counted that were not cast by authentic voters, there would have been evidence of irregular turnout. But the inquiry found turnout was not irregular in any way.
Additionally, the report stated “the data suggests that there was no anomalous number of votes cast solely for the President, either in Wayne County or statewide.”
THERE WAS NO CHEATING BY THE DEMOCRATS!!! The only cheating that has been going on is by these Republicans. I know you know that. But sometimes you just have to say it out loud.