Republican Michigan Election Board Official: ‘Wife and Children’ Were Threatened

Detroit election workers work on counting absentee ballots for the 2020 general election at TCF Center in Detroit, Mich., on Nov. 4, 2020. Jeff Kowalsky/AFP via Getty Images

The lone Michigan Board of Canvassers official to not vote to certify Michigan’s elections results for Democrat Joe Biden said that both he and his family received death threats.

Norm Shinkle, a Republican who abstained from voting, said that anonymous callers threatened him if he didn’t vote to certify.

There were, according to his interview with Newsmax, “a whole string of anonymous calls threatening my family and me, and 20 to 30 protesters on my front lawn Saturday night.” He said that overall, more than 40 phone calls and 7,000 emails were sent to him, calling on—and threatening—him to certify the result that favors Biden.

The campaign was “most likely orchestrated by the state Democratic Party and labor unions,“ he said. “The [threats] that mentioned my wife and children or said ‘we know where you live’ I turned over to the police.”

“The mentality here was ‘whoever threatens the most wins,’” Shinkle said in the Nov. 23 interview. It came after the Board of Canvassers voted to certify in the afternoon on Nov. 23, with the other GOP member—state House Republican Caucus attorney Aaron Van Langevelde—voting alongside Democrats.

“I was ‘Dr. Evil’ to the left-wing,” Shinkle told Newsmax, adding that days before the vote, he expressed a desire for the board to delay certification pending a complete audit.

“I need the evidence [of errors in the vote-count] and I need it in 48 hours,“ Shinkle told the news outlet, adding that from President Donald Trump, lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others, ”I want to see what they have in terms of hard evidence.“ Since he didn’t receive their evidence, Shinkle said he abstained rather than voting ”no.”

During the meeting before the board, “public comments” that were Skyped or sent via Zoom were likely “completed orchestrated by the left,” Shinkle said.

“Nearly all of the participants warning against a vote not to certify used the exact words ‘disenfranchising black and brown voters’ and that was a clear sign this was scripted,” he said.

In the hearing, he read a strongly worded statement that denounced Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, for how she handled the election in Michigan. He also called for an investigation into alleged illegal voting and fraud.

Two Republicans who sat on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers signed affidavits in a bid to rescind their votes to certify, citing alleged threats and harassment.

Shinkle’s comments, meanwhile, came after Michigan Republican Party Chairwoman Laura Cox and Republican National Committee Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel on Nov. 21 called on Michigan to conduct a full audit before the Board of Canvassers certified the vote.

“This board faces a stark choice,” they wrote in a letter to state officials. “It can either ignore numerical anomalies and credible reports of procedural irregularities, leaving the distrust and sense of procedural disenfranchisement felt by many Michigan voters to fester for years; or it can adjourn for fourteen days to allow for a full audit and investigation into those anomalies and irregularities before certifying the results.”

Benson said on Nov. 19 that there would be a statewide risk-limiting audit of the general election.

“This a typical, standard procedure following election certification, and one that will be carried out in Wayne County and any other local jurisdictions where the data shows any notable clerical errors following state certification of the November election,” she said in a statement.

Benson has also said she’s seen no evidence of voter fraud, while the Department of Homeland Security’s cybersecurity division made similar statements last week.