In one case, Republicans said GOP election observers in Detroit were being excluded when city officials fixed, or “cured,” ballots that their machines couldn’t read. In these cases — which might be caused by a stray mark or a coffee stain — officials can make a duplicate ballot, with the same votes, and run that one instead.
Republicans said they had “information and belief” that this curing process had been done repeatedly without a GOP official there to observe it. They asked a judge to delay certifying Detroit’s results. The judge said no. He said the GOP’s evidence of misconduct was “mere speculation.”
“The City of Detroit should not be harmed when there is no evidence to support accusations of voter fraud,” Judge Timothy M. Kenny wrote.
In another suit, Trump’s presidential campaign asked a judge to stop all processing of absentee ballots in Michigan.
In that case, a Republican election observer said she’d been given a sticky note by an unnamed poll worker, alleging that late-arriving ballots were being counted improperly. But she couldn’t provide the poll worker’s name or any other proof.
A judge rejected that, saying that the GOP’s evidence was inadmissible as hearsay.
