Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Tuesday announced the completion of the most comprehensive post-election audit in state history, which confirmed President Joe Biden did, in fact, win the Great Lakes State by roughly 150,000 votes.
More than 250 audits of casted ballots, Dominion Voting Systems machines, and election board processes were examined.
“Over the last several months, the state Bureau of Elections has worked with local clerks to conduct more audits than ever before in our state’s history, and each has reaffirmed the accuracy, security and integrity of the November 2020 election,” Benson said in a statement. “We’ve responded to every question and claim and the evidence is clear. It is time for leaders across the political spectrum to tell their constituents the truth, that our election was the most secure in history, and the results accurately reflect the will of Michigan’s voters.”
A random, statewide audit was conducted, where 18,000 ballots were pulled and hand-counted. According to Benson's office, the audit concluded Dominion Voting Systems' machines accurately tabulated the ballot count in the 2020 presidential election.
Special attention was paid to Antrim County, where an alleged software glitch attributed 6,000 votes to Biden, when, in fact, they were cast for Trump. Once this issue was brought to light in November, it was quickly fixed. Benson said it was due to "human error," not the software.
During the audit, every vote that was cast for president in Antrim County was hand-counted. The audit "found that the Dominion machines used accurately counted ballots throughout the county." Trump ended up winning the red Antrim County, the Detroit Free Press reported.
Benson placed blame on state legislators, saying the election-related issues could have been avoided had election officials had more time to process absentee ballots. She said election officials were under a tight deadline to fix absentee ballot counting boards.
"Out-of-balance precincts are common across the state and nation, and essentially represent clerical errors where an election official failed to note that a voter at the polls checked in and then left with their ballot in hand, or a couple mailed their two absentee ballots in one envelope. Such errors are often corrected or explained in the county canvass, but time constraints make that more difficult, especially in high-population jurisdictions," the statement explained. "This was demonstrated by all four audits of absentee voter counting boards, where auditors were able to balance or explain numerous boards that cities were not able to resolve in the short window of time available after closing of the counting boards, and which county canvassers could not reconcile in the less than two weeks available for the county canvass."
“If state lawmakers truly want to affirm faith in our elections, they will provide more time to election officials to process absentee ballots before Election Day, and canvass them afterwards, just as I’ve proposed in my legislative agenda to advance the vote and protect democracy,” said Benson. “Had they done this prior to November, after clerks and I asked them to for more than a year, they could have pre-emptively debunked many of the lies that have since attacked our democracy.”
A full report will be made public in the near future, although a definitive timeframe has not yet been released.
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