Michigan Judge Allows Secretary of State to Intervene in Case Involving Dominion Voting Machines

A worker with the Detroit Department of Elections celebrates after hearing the nearly final number of 167,000 absentee ballots that were counted is announced over the loudspeaker at the Central Counting Board in the TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 4. Elaine Cromie/Getty Images

A judge approved an emergency motion from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to intervene in a case against Antrim County that involved Dominion Voting Systems vote-tabulation machines.

Judge Kevin Elsenheimer ruled Thursday that Attorney General Dana Nessel can intervene on behalf of Benson’s office in the case that had questioned the election results on Nov. 3. Benson argued that she had supervisory control over the Antrim County election clerk’s office, saying that she had an interest in any audits being done.

Assistant Attorney General Heather Meingast told The Detroit News that Nessel’s office is concerned with forensic imaging being performed on Antrim County’s 22 Dominion machines by Allied Security Operations Group and a resident of the Village of Central Lake. Allied Security is reportedly aligned with President Donald Trump’s lawsuits and efforts to overturn the election amid allegations of voter fraud.

“We’d like to know more about what was obtained, what the intent is for the use of the images obtained,” Meingast told the paper. Meingast said the imaging efforts could compromise the security of future elections in Michigan.

The plaintiff in the case, William Bailey, argued that the state shouldn’t be granted intervention.

Bailey’s lawyer, Matthew DePerno, said that Benson’s office and other Michigan officials made false statements last month, coming after the GOP highlighted a 6,000-vote switch from Trump to Joe Biden in Antrim County. Benson and others said it was due to a software glitch.

“We believe now that that statement was false,” DePerno said of the claims that the vote-switch was due to a glitch, adding that they have seen “serious security breaches” regarding the voting machines, according to the Washington Examiner. He is planning an appeal of the judge’s order.

Over the past weekend, Trump attorney Jenna Ellis said their team was able to start forensically examining 22 machines in Antrim County on Sunday.

“Our team is going to be able to go in this morning at about 8:30 [a.m.] and will be there for about eight hours to conduct that forensic examination and we’ll have the results in about 48 hours, and that’ll tell us a lot about these machines,” she told Fox News on Dec. 6.

“A judge actually granted our team access … to conduct a forensic audit,” Ellis added. Other details were not provided.

Later, before the judge’s order, Antrim County spokesperson Jeremy Scott told the Detroit Free Press that forensic images will be taken from voting machines used during the Nov. 3 election.

Dominion, in numerous statements, has vigorously denied that its machines can switch votes from one candidate to another and also has denied ties to other vote-tabulation software companies or foreign governments. The firm’s CEO, John Poulos, said in a statement to the Detroit Free Press that the firm is willing to testify in Michigan amid allegations that its machines can switch votes.