Michigan Supreme Court Tosses Pro-Trump Election Suit

By Allison Donahue, Michigan Advance

The Michigan Supreme Court denied another right-wing attempt to challenge the Nov. 3 general election Wednesday, adding to the long list of failed legal battles headed by President Trump’s campaign and allies.

In a 4-3 decision, Michigan Supreme Court justices denied plaintiff’s request in Johnson vs. Secretary of State to appoint someone to investigate unproven claims of fraudulent activity at the TCF Center in Detroit where ballots were counted.

The suit was filed by the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society. As the Advance previously reported, the director is former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline, who had his law license revoked. The group has filed other post-election suits in battleground states.

Justice Elizabeth Clement was the lone GOP-nominated judge to side with the three Democrat-nominated judges on the court.

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“I do not think it is an appropriate exercise of this Court’s discretion to prolong the uncertainty over the legal status of this election’s outcome,” Clement wrote in her concurring opinion. “Moreover, I believe it would be irresponsible to continue holding out the possibility of a judicial solution to a dispute that it appears must be resolved politically.”

The lawsuit was filed after the Board of State Canvassers had already certified on Nov. 23 its election results, which found Democrat Joe Biden to be the winner of the presidential election by more than 154,000 votes than President Donald Trump.

A number of similar lawsuits have gone before Michigan courts, led by both Trump’s campaign and allies, in recent weeks, all of which have been found moot with no evidence of election fraud.

Justice David Viviano wrote in his dissent that “by closing the courthouse door on these petitioners, the Court today denies them any ability to have their claims fully considered by the judiciary. That is because petitioners, rightly thinking that time is short, have filed this case as an original action in this Court. As a result, they have received no decision below and now will go without any answer.”

However, Clement states that the plaintiffs never asked for an audit.

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“Justices Viviano and Zahra focus on the constitutional right to an audit that the petitioners do not actually ask for in their prayer for relief. Rather, the prayer for relief asks for a variety of essentially interim steps—taking control of ballots, segregating ballots the petitioners believe were unlawful, enjoining officials from taking action predicated on the vote counts—but does not ask for any actual electoral outcome to be changed,” Clement wrote.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections announced earlier Wednesday detailed plans for a post-election audit, including a statewide risk-limiting audit, a complete zero-margin risk-limiting audit in Antrim County, and procedural audits in more than 200 jurisdictions statewide, including absentee ballot counting boards.

“I am a longstanding proponent of post-election audits to review election procedure and affirm public confidence in our elections,” said Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. “By conducting the most comprehensive set of audits in our state’s history, the Bureau of Elections and Michigan’s more than 1,600 local election clerks are demonstrating the integrity of our election.

“… As Attorney General William Barr, the FBI and CISA all have confirmed, this was most secure election in our nation’s history and we are confident these audits will continue to affirm that truth.”

This story was originally published by the Michigan Advance. For more stories from the Michigan Advance, visit MichiganAdvance.com.