Michigan GOP Senate Report Finds Zero Voter Fraud, Vows To Fix Problems It Just Said It Didn't Find

For now let's just focus on the part where the GOP-controlled state Senate annihilated every insane Trump conspiracy theory about the 2020 election in Michigan.

The Michigan state Senate released a report on the 2020 election in the state, finding that there was no widespread voter fraud and that babies come from human beings having sex. The report, the result of a months-long review by the Republican -led Senate Oversight Committee, sought to reassure voters in the state that they shouldn't freak out when hucksters make ridiculous claims:

Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan. The Committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.

The report arrived as those very hucksters continue to push for a bogus Arizona-style "audit" of the 2020 vote, because why would anyone trust election officials, the official recount of the votes, or anything else that says Joe Biden actually won in Michigan? Biden did win Michigan, of course, by 154,000 votes, and none of the multiple lawsuits by Trump supporters held up in court.

The report also recommends that state Attorney General Dana Nessel's office "consider investigating those who have been utilizing misleading and false information [...] to raise money or publicity for their own ends."

The committee looked into all sorts of allegations of "fraud" that turned out to be nothing. No dead people voting — and unlike in some other states, not even any Trump supporters turning in absentee ballots for dead relatives, to balance out the frauding they were absolutely sure Democrats did. But the committee did praise state and county officials for finding and removing some 3,500 absentee ballots submitted by voters who were very much alive when they sent the ballots in, but who died before Election Day.

The biggest chunk of the report is devoted to debunking the idea that a computer screwup in Antrim County, solid Trump territory, was somehow proof of massive fraud. (Donald Trump and his idiots have beenWAILING about "Antrim County! Antrim County!" ) The error resulted from the county clerk's office failing to update and test computer software prior to the election. That led to an inaccurate (and unofficial) report that Trump had lost the county to Biden, but the problem was quickly identified and corrected. The final county tallyhad Trump winning Antrim County with 61 percent of the vote, a result that matched up with the vote counts at precincts, and which was verified in a hand recount.

Nonetheless, Trumpers seized on the temporary reporting error as proof they'd seen something nasty in the vote shed, and they got to work spinning out elaborate fantasies about voting machines from Dominion Voting Systems (next time, go with a corporate name like "Eagle Flag Love America And Puppies, Inc") and secret plots where foreign powers changed the votes with space lasers from Venezuela. Trump is still pouting about it and claiming the county he won, which the official results always showed he won, proves just how deep the national fraud goes.

For all that, the report says, pretty much, Get A Life. It debunks the nonsense in some detail, finding the conspiracy claims "are unjustified and unfair to the people of Antrim County and the state of Michigan," and specifically citing the bullshit about Antrim County in its call for investigations of those trying to make money off fake claims. The committee's review of the evidence, the report says, found that

ideas and speculation that the Antrim County election workers or outside entities manipulated the vote by hand or electronically are indefensible. Further, the Committee is appalled at what can only be deduced as a willful ignorance or avoidance of this proof perpetuated by some leading such speculation.

The report is especially harsh on the conspiracy theories spread by attorney Matthew DePerno, who unsuccessfully sued over the Antrim County votes and is among the leaders of the loonies demanding a fake audit to make the election go Trump's way. In Lansing, last week, DePerno spoke at a rally for a petition drive in favor of an "audit."

"They are lying," said Matthew DePerno, a lawyer who is spearheading the petition drive. A small crowd cheered as he denounced Michigan's secretary of state as a "tyrant" and the state's Democratic governor as "the Fuhrer" and claimed that county clerks — many of them Republicans — had engaged in racketeering and conspiracy.

"These people have committed crimes," he said.

"Put them in shackles," shouted a man in the crowd, to whoops and applause.

We have a feeling DePerno won't as all be reassured by the GOP state Senate report, which said it had examined claims about Antrim County by DePerno and "can confidently conclude they are demonstrably false and based on misleading information and illogical conclusions." It noted that a video by a guy working with DePerno showed that if computers are hacked, they'll deliver incorrect results, but that the brain geniuses didn't offer any proof that Antrim County's computers actually were hacked. (Oh, and yes, the vote tally was verified by a hand recount, remember.)

The report also debunked DePerno's claims that the Dominion voting machines had modems or chips that would allow foreigns to change results (again, no results were changed, and Trump won in Antrim County). But nah, the report points out that Antrim's voting machines are not and never have been equipped with modems or other internet connectivity. In a big boldface paragraph, the report says

The Committee finds those promoting Antrim County as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election place all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility.

Good report, GOP-led Michigan state Senate!

Of course, despite conclusively showing there was no substantial fraud in Michigan, the report called for major "reforms" of voting procedures in the state. We guess we shouldn't interpret the fact that they debunked the fraud to mean they actually want people freely voting . That's not the Republican party platform!

[ Michigan Senate Oversight Committee report / Detroit News / WaPo / Image: Screenshot of Twitter video by Salwan Georges]

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