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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/02/michigan-clerk-election-denier-faces-recall
Deepening tensions within rural and conservative Hillsdale county, Michigan, are coming to a head in a recall election for an election-denying township clerk who has been accused of spreading misinformation and mishandling a vote tabulator.
Elected in Adams Township in 2020, Stephanie Scott, who ran unopposed, has spent her years as a clerk – a position that would typically oversee township elections – mostly removed from the electoral process. After she refused to turn over a voting machine for regular maintenance in 2021, allegedly shared confidential voter data with a third-party IT analyst, and spread lies about election rigging, the Michigan Bureau of Elections removed Scott’s power to administer elections.
Michigan’s election security issues are not limited to the small township. Similar alleged security breaches surfaced across the politically competitive state following the 2020 elections as some poll workers and clerks, convinced by Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, attempted to access tabulators. A special prosecutor in Michigan has reportedly convened a secret grand jury to investigate.
In a 25 October 2021 letter to Scott, Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, wrote “your past statements, detailed in prior letters, indicate that you are unwilling to fulfill your responsibilities as clerk”, and directed the clerk to “refrain from any election administration activities”. Scott’s attorney, Stefanie Lambert, has joined lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania pushing debunked allegations of election fraud and has been sanctioned for her role in promoting election-related lies. (In an interview with the Guardian, Scott denied all allegations of wrongdoing as “one hundred percent false”.)
Deepening tensions within rural and conservative Hillsdale county, Michigan, are coming to a head in a recall election for an election-denying township clerk who has been accused of spreading misinformation and mishandling a vote tabulator.
Elected in Adams Township in 2020, Stephanie Scott, who ran unopposed, has spent her years as a clerk – a position that would typically oversee township elections – mostly removed from the electoral process. After she refused to turn over a voting machine for regular maintenance in 2021, allegedly shared confidential voter data with a third-party IT analyst, and spread lies about election rigging, the Michigan Bureau of Elections removed Scott’s power to administer elections.
Michigan’s election security issues are not limited to the small township. Similar alleged security breaches surfaced across the politically competitive state following the 2020 elections as some poll workers and clerks, convinced by Donald Trump’s baseless claims of election fraud, attempted to access tabulators. A special prosecutor in Michigan has reportedly convened a secret grand jury to investigate.
In a 25 October 2021 letter to Scott, Jocelyn Benson, the Michigan secretary of state, wrote “your past statements, detailed in prior letters, indicate that you are unwilling to fulfill your responsibilities as clerk”, and directed the clerk to “refrain from any election administration activities”. Scott’s attorney, Stefanie Lambert, has joined lawsuits in Michigan and Pennsylvania pushing debunked allegations of election fraud and has been sanctioned for her role in promoting election-related lies. (In an interview with the Guardian, Scott denied all allegations of wrongdoing as “one hundred percent false”.)
