‘There’s no fraud here’: how a Republican official is addressing election denialism in his rural county

Abe Dane: ‘Clerks should be non-partisan, because all we care about is allowing people to have access to the voting process.’ Illustration: Javier Palma/The Guardian/Sarah Rice

Abe Dane would be the first to admit he had concerns about election fraud during the 2020 election. He believed the elections in his own county, where he had worked the polls, were clean – but he wasn’t sure about other counties in the state, where unfounded claims of fraud swirled in 2020.

That was before he took a position in local election administration. Now, with first-hand experience, Dane, the director of elections in Hillsdale county, Michigan, is confident in the process.