During the June 22 Cheboygan County Board meeting, commissioners voted to request an audit of the county’s voting machines.
Since mid-April, the county board of commissioners has been deliberating a Detroit attorney's offer to do what she calls a "third-party audit."
Now, in a 4-3 vote, commissioners have approved a letter to be sent to Michigan Elections Director Jonathan Brater requesting an audit.
The letter cites community concerns as the main motive for the request. With the audit, commissioners said they want to verify the county’s election results are accurate and ensure the Dominion voting machines were not manipulated.
On Tuesday, the Michigan Bureau of Elections released a report on 250 post-election audits they conducted across the state. The report says the audits show no evidence of fraud.
Additionally, a Michigan Senate Oversight Committee released a report on Wednesday that "found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election."
Chaired by Republican Sen. Ed McBroom, the committee released the report after conducting nearly 30 hours of public hearings, hearing 87 witness testimonies and reviewing over 400 pages of testimony.
Despite the reports' results, Commissioner Richard Sangster said this audit is different because it's just him following through on his constituents' concerns. Even if the request gets rejected, Sangster said he's done his job.
"Well, we did what pretty much the majority of my constituents asked me to do," Sangster said. "If anything, we're just wanting to move forward."
Sangster said if the audit goes through, he just hopes that it will reaffirm what the results of other audits that found no evidence of fraud.
This story was produced as part of the Michigan News Group Internship. A collaboration between WCMU and eight community newspapers. Teresa is based at the Huron Daily Tribune.
