The TCF convention center in Detroit, Michigan was the site of major commotion around the 2020 Presidential election as poll challengers and election workers disputed election procedures.
Plaintiffs Constantino and McCall, individual citizens, filed this complaint to protect the rights of voters in Wayne County, Michigan. They alleged that the Detroit Election Commission fraudulently processed and counted illegal and/or wholly manufactured ballots for Joe Biden.
Witnesses providing affidavits include a former Michigan Assistant Attorney General, a long-term employee of Detroit who was assigned to work the 2020 Election, and numerous poll challengers. They personally witnessed officials instructing election workers to engage in serious violations of election conduct before, during, and after the election. Some of the outrageous activities they observed included signatures not be verified on absentee ballots, late absentee ballots being backdated and processed after the election deadline, ballots whose voter names did not appear in the voter registry actually being counted, and tens of thousands of ballots appearing overnight – all marked for Joe Biden – with computer operators manually entering voter information for these thousands of mysterious ballots. As challenges increased, Republican poll challengers were denied re-entry to the convention center.
Plaintiffs asked for an independent and non-partisan audit to determine the accuracy and integrity of the election and an injunction against certifying the votes until after this matter could be heard in court.
After a November 13 hearing, Judge Timothy Kenny denied the Plaintiffs’ request based on six affidavits provided by the Defendants. He concluded that the Defendants’ witnesses had provided a more persuasive explanation of the activity at the TCF center. He belittled the Plaintiffs’ witness affidavits and even offered some startling circular reasoning regarding one affiant’s description of tens of thousands of ballots appearing at 4:30 AM on November 4, all for Joe Biden. “It is not surprising that many of the votes being observed by Mr. Sitto were votes cast for Mr. Biden in light of the fact that former Vice President Biden received approximately 220,000 more votes than President Trump.”
The Plaintiffs unsuccessfully tried to appeal the lower court’s ruling to both the Michigan Court of Appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court. In a November 23 opinion, Judges in the Michigan Supreme Court did not believe the Plaintiffs had been persuasive, despite recognizing they were raising serious issues. Judge Viviano dissented, noting that there were “critical constitutional questions” concerning their right to an audit. “The constitutional provision at issue in this case, which the people of Michigan voted to add in 2018 through Proposal 3, guarantees to “[e]very citizen of the United States who is an elector qualified to vote in Michigan . . . [t]he right to have the results of statewide elections audited, in such a manner as prescribed by law, to ensure the accuracy and integrity of elections.” Judge Viviano wrote that the trial court erred in denying the audit based solely on the affidavits and concluding they were not credible without having an evidentiary hearing which should have occurred given the conflicting affidavits of the opposing party’s witnesses.
This ruling came out the same day that Michigan certified its votes, giving Joe Biden a margin of 154,000 over Donald Trump. Despite the lack of a constitutionally permissible audit.