On Monday, the state of Michigan barred two local election officials in an Upper Peninsula township from administering elections.
In correspondence sent the Michigan Bureau of Elections, the officials said they planned to hand count ballots. The Bureau's director, Jonathan Brater, said in a letter to Rock River Township in Alger County that this was illegal.
In his letter, Brater said Rock River Township Clerk Tom Schierkolk and Deputy Clerk David LaMere were banned from elections work.
Brater said in his letter that a hand count wasn’t legal and would "interfere with the integrity of the election process, undermine the county canvass, and jeopardize the ability of candidates to request a recount.”
Schierkolk and LaMere are ordered to refrain from election-related activities including preparation, voter registration, ordering supplies and ballots, training inspectors and other key tasks.
“He [Brater] has simply taken it upon himself to remove me because he believes I am going to break the law by hand counting ballots, which I believe is ridiculous,” Schierkolk said during a phone interview with WCMU.
Scheirkolk went on to say that Brater has no authority to ban him from administering the election, and that hand counting ballots is legal.
“Before we seal the ballots in the ballot boxes, we were going to hand count the ballots simply to verify that the tabulators are counting exactly as they are meant to,” Scheirkolk added.
Scheirkolk said this process was going to be done to address local concerns over the integrity of the election. “By hand counting the ballots after the tabulator has done its job, that in itself is a beneficial thing to restore integrity in the election.” he said.
Teri Grout is the township's supervisor. She told WCMU that local officials in her township take election integrity very seriously and will be working with the Bureau of Elections to make sure the results are processed "in the most secure way possible and we don't have any interference from people who have indicated that they are not willing to follow the law," Grout said.
A neighboring township clerk and Rock River Township's deputy treasurer are currently overseeing the remainder of the elections.
