By Clara Hendrickson - PolitiFact
President Donald Trump continues to seek impossible victories in the states he lost in the Nov. 3 election, this time with a false allegation of having succeeded in the counting process in Michigan.
"Wow!
Michigan just refused to certify the election results, "Trump said on Twitter." Having courage is beautiful.
America is proud! "He added.
The president is wrong
.
Michigan did not refuse to certify the results of its elections.
In fact, the State Council of Tellers, which is in charge of certifying the results, has not yet met to do so.
The meeting is scheduled for November 23.
[Trump called two election officials in Michigan before they decided to question the vote count]
Trump appears to have confused the State Council with the Wayne County Council of Tellers, the largest in the state.
On November 17, the four-member county board was delayed when its two Republican members initially voted against certifying the results.
Later, they joined their Democratic colleagues to unanimously certify the results.
This is what really happened in Wayne County
The Wayne County board met on November 17 to consider the election results of its 43 jurisdictions, including Detroit.
Republican members of the board - the president, Monica Palmer, and William Hartmann - initially voted against certifying the county's results, citing discrepancies in some Detroit districts and in the number of early votes cast and counted by the tellers.
Electoral districts with such discrepancies are considered "uneven" unless the gaps are accounted for and accounted for in the electoral registers.
[Trump prepares his latest attack on the legitimacy of the elections but his allies offer him two pieces of advice]
Of Detroit's 503 electoral precincts, 85 were unequal, as were 94 of the city's 134 early voting counting boards.
Most of them registered discrepancies of three votes or less;
only 10 precincts that were activated on Election Day and 43 early count meetings had larger discrepancies.
Discrepancies occurred in about 400 of the roughly 250,000 votes cast in Detroit, based on unofficial election results.
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During the meeting,
Palmer said she would be willing to certify election results for jurisdictions outside of Detroit,
although some of them also had districts that had inequalities.
These Republican votes aroused a cry of protest.
Those who participated in the video conference accused them of racism for suggesting that the votes of Detroit, the largest city in the state where 80% of the population is black, be excluded.
[Trump Administration officials speak privately with Biden to ease the transition despite the president's lockdown]
Palmer and Hartmann
changed their minds and ultimately voted to certify
the election
results
and passed a resolution for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to audit the county results.
What happens next
Now that the canvassing boards in all 83 Michigan counties have certified their results, the Board of State Tellers will meet on November 23 to certify the results at the state level.
A federal lawsuit filed by the Trump campaign asked the state's Western District Court to stop the certification of Michigan election results.
The court has not yet ruled on the case.
The lawsuit is based, in large part, on hundreds of affidavits filed by Republican candidates present at the TCF Center, where Detroit poll workers counted early votes cast by city voters.
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The claims of voter fraud in Detroit have so far been rejected in court.
Steven Liedel, a Lansing, Michigan attorney specializing in state constitutional law, said state board members are required to certify results statewide.
[Biden gets nearly 80 million votes, but Trump keeps pushing for the recount and won't admit defeat]
"They have taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and Michigan, and they have a legal duty to certify the results if they are presented to them," he said.
Our rating
Trump claimed Michigan "refused to certify the election results."
That is not true.
The State Board that certifies the results in Michigan is scheduled to meet on November 23.
That day they will vote on the certification.
In Wayne County, two Republican canvassing board members initially voted against certifying the results, but later reversed their votes.
We qualify Trump's claim as
false
.
This article was translated by Daniela Nougues thanks to the FactChat agreement, coordinated by the
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