The Michigan county that discovered hundreds of votes for former president Donald Trump had been switched to votes for President Joe Biden during the 2020 presidential election has decided to stop using Dominion Voting Systems and instead hand-count every ballot in an upcoming primary.
Antrim County commissioners voted unanimously over the weekend to hand count the votes of a May 4 primary.
County clerk Sheryl Guy had proposed spending $5,080 to hire consultants to prepare Dominion’s voting machines, but the commissioners argued that reprogramming the machines amidst an ongoing lawsuit involving Dominion would violate a judge’s order.
“If we use them, we have to delete them, which is contradictory to a court order,” commissioner Terry VanAlstine said before the vote, according to the Epoch Times. “We can’t delete the data that’s on the machines. If you use the current machines, they need to be swiped, they need to be cleared. And we can’t do that.”
To comply with the judge’s order, which states Dominion’s machines could be used as evidence in the ongoing case, Guy proposed removing and securing the machines’ hard drives, replacing them with new hard drives, and sharing the contractual information with the court.
But Antrim County residents argued wiping the machines of relevant data is an easy way to rig future elections and hide past abuse.
“If humans want to create a bias and favor certain candidates, they certainly have that ability with any of these machines,” Dale Eschenburg, who served as a volunteer poll auditor in December, said. “Dominion has no credibility in my view.”
Hand counting ballots is technically not permitted under Michigan’s election law, but Antrim County officials said they hope the state understands.
“The state says we can’t. But let them come and tell us that we can’t, given our circumstance,” Ed Boettcher, the chairman of the Antrim County board of commissioners, said. “We’re going to say we’re going to hand count them and let the state tell us we can’t.”
