The Board of State Canvassers will conduct a partial recount of votes cast during the November 8th General Election for both Proposal 2, which expanded voting rights, and Proposal 3, which enshrined abortion rights in the Michigan Constitution.
The recount will take place in more than 600 precincts across Michigan, including some in Livingston County, after petitions were filed last week making a series of disproven claims about software altering votes and election equipment being connected to the internet during balloting for the proposals, each of which received more than double-digit approval.
In Livingston County, the recount will only affect ballots for Proposal 3 in 12 precincts located in Genoa, Green Oak, Hamburg, Oceola, Putnam & Tyrone townships, as well as the City of Howell. It will start this Wednesday, December 7th at 9 a.m. at the John E. LaBelle Public Safety Complex located at 1911 Tooley Road in Howell. The meeting is open to the public.
The petitions were filed by Election Integrity Force (EIF), a Michigan GOP group that has made numerous false claims about the 2020 election.
EIF issued a press release last week saying they were “excited” to begin the recount.
“The data from the recount will be used to determine future actions,” stated the release. “This is one big step forward for the election integrity movement and the effort to hold our elected officials accountable to conduct transparent and trustworthy elections for the Michigan citizens.”
The petitions allege that the recount was necessitated by concerns over “a significant risk of foreign or domestic hacking” taking place in the election, claims similar to those made by Republicans since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Those claims have been continually disproven, including by a 2021 report from the Republican-controlled Michigan Senate Oversight Committee which “found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election,” and concluded “citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan.”
