LANSING, Mich. — The Michigan Board of State Canvassers voted unanimously Monday to certify the results of the state's Nov. 8 general election during an at-capacity, hourslong meeting in which an audience member was escorted out by police.
Several candidates challenging Election Day practices, including Republican Secretary of State candidate Kristina Karamo, spoke out against Election Day practices in an attempt to delay the certification.
But the four-member bipartisan board stood by the results and argued candidates either misunderstood the process or were taking issue with the law underlying the practice — in which case, they could file litigation or lobby for a change in law.
"A lot of questions that arise are from just a lack of proper understanding, which is unfortunately fed by candidates and parties from both sides of the aisle who feed into this nonsense, who make these claims that fire everybody up because there's a short-term gain for them," said Board of State Canvassers Chairman Tony Daunt, a Republican.
The two Republicans and two Democrats who sit on the state elections board noted their role was largely ministerial — to certify the results from Michigan's 83 county canvassing boards.
Canvassers reviewed each of the certification documents from those counties, with the knowledge that those were tied to summaries and evidence speaking to the accuracy of the election results, said canvasser Richard Houskamp, a Republican.
"The information is there," Houskamp said. "Those documents go back to physical ballots."
"At the end of the day, it's your city clerk and your township clerk and the people that live in your community that come out and actually work elections that are an integral part of this," said canvasser Jeannette Bradshaw, a Democrat.
Karamo, at the hearing, challenged the accuracy of the state's qualified voter file, the certification of election equipment and the acceptance of ballots from Ann Arbor after 8 p.m. on Election Day.
The state has maintained its upkeep of the qualified voter file is in keeping with federal election law, and state law allows individuals in line to vote at 8 p.m. to remain in line and cast their ballot, whether it's in-person or by absentee ballot.
"The fraud in our elections — the corruption, the systemic corruption in our election system — touches all races," Karamo said. "It just doesn't touch statewide races. It touches our mayoral races. It touches our county commissioner races. And these individuals who we put into office make decisions over our lives."
Karamo lost her race to incumbent Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson by 14 percentage points.
During the meeting, an individual wearing a body cam who was warned repeatedly to stop speaking out of turn was escorted from the room by several officers. A recess was called to persuade the man to leave the room, at which point members of the crowd bickered and shouted at each other before someone called for prayer to calm the crowd.
The certification comes two years after the mostly low-profile canvassing process was scrutinized during the November 2020 election as former President Donald Trump and his supporters lobbed unsupported claims of widespread voter fraud.
The Wayne County Board of State Canvassers in 2020 initially deadlocked along party lines because of some out-of-balance precincts, before coming to an agreement to approve the results. The state board of canvassers in 2020 approved the results 3-0 with one Republican canvasser abstaining from the vote.
The Wayne County Board of Canvassers last week unanimously approved the results for its communities, including Detroit, in a final stamp of approval for the results. Detroit's absentee ballot records were found to be perfectly in balance, meaning the number of ballots matched the number of voters recorded in electronic poll books and at the counting board.
