LANSING, Mich. (AP) — This year’s presidential election would go to Sheryl Guy, who was eager to retire after more than four decades working in the clerk’s office in northern Michigan’s Antrim County.
Tuesday’s result primary could disrupt these plans.
Five candidates are competing in the Republican primary to succeed her as the county’s top election official, a position she has held for the past 12 years. The winner will be the favorite in the Republican-leaning county in November.
One of these candidates has promoted election conspiracies and has been a vocal critic of the election office since the 2020 presidential election, when County Antrim found himself in the national spotlight as then-president donald trump pressured to annul the results in Michigan and other swing states.
If the election skeptic wins the primary, Guy said she plans to run as a candidate in the general election.
“I fear taxpayers and the county will become part of their agenda,” she said. “I can’t just hand over an office where I worked for over 45 years to an election conspirator.”
The Antrim County race is just one of many in Michigan and other states holding primaries on Tuesday. Michigan’s is the latest to field Republican candidates who were promoting election conspiracies or was openly skeptical of voting and counting of votesdespite no evidence in widespread fraud or problems in the country’s elections.
This year’s primaries served as an indicator of Republican voters’ enthusiasm for candidates who continue to promote false claims about the 2020 election in a party where a strong majority still believe that Democratic President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. Still, the results were mixed.
Last week, Republican voters in Arizona Maricopa County removed the head of the electoral office who tirelessly defended the legitimacy of state elections and faced years of threats and harassment for doing this. They went with a state lawmaker who has questioned several aspects of the election system, setting up what is almost certain to be a high-profile general election battle in a county that is a perennial target in election conspirators.
Earlier this year, a politically crucial county commissioner in another presidential battleground state, Nevada, survived a primary challenge of election conspirators.
In Michigan, Antrim County isn’t the only place with election conspiracy theorists in the Republican primary elections.
Two republicans standing among a group loaded by acting as fake presidential electors after the 2020 election, they are competing to become their party’s candidates – one for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives and another for a local clerk position. The southwest Michigan county sheriff, who continued investigating False allegations of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election is running for re-election against several Republican opponents.
The focus on Antrim County, a Republican-leaning region near the resort town of Traverse City, began shortly after the 2020 presidential election when the county reported a landslide victory for Biden.
The problem was attributed to human errorthere were no problems with the voting machines, and the results were quickly corrected to show that Trump won the county.
This did nothing to calm speculation that something nefarious had happened. Those who questioned Trump’s loss in Michigan quickly seized on the reporting error to suggest that voting machines were responsible for widespread fraudalthough there has been there is no such evidence.
Guy, who said he voted for Trump in 2020, remains the target of baseless conspiracy theories and personal attacks.
Victoria Bishop, along with her husband Randy, a conservative radio host who sued Guy, has been a vocal supporter of election conspiracy theories and is now seeking Guy’s position.
Bishop did not respond to phone calls and text messages seeking comment. Contacted by phone, her husband said he would not comment. Bishop’s social media pages state that she aims to “restore electoral integrity in County Antrim.” Among her plans is manually count each ballot cast to ensure they match the machine’s results.
Four other candidates are running in the Republican primary, including one that Guy supported. If Bishop wins, Guy said she will delay her retirement to run as an incumbent in November.
“It’s not just my race. It’s the sheriff’s race. These are municipal races. We are being infiltrated,” said Guy. “They’re coming in and trying to take over.”
Research has shown that manually counting votes takes longer and is less accurate than automatic counting.
“Some of these activists are pushing for changes to election procedures that actually make elections less secure,” said David Becker, an election law expert and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “Manual counts are less accurate and, more importantly, take more time. And if you delay any longer, we will see that there are unscrupulous candidates who will use this time in this vacuum to spread lies and potentially violence.”
In southeast Michigan, Stanley Grot is running for re-election as Shelby Township clerk, a position that oversees local elections. Grot was prevented from running any election after being accused last year by the state attorney general for acting as a fake 2020 voter for Trump.
In response to a request for comment about his race and allegations, Grot responded, “No comment.”
Another accused fake voter, Republican Michele Lundgren, is running unopposed in Tuesday’s primary for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives. She is expected to face House Speaker Joe Tate, a Democrat, in November. Lundgren did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
Grot and Lundgren’s candidacies represent the prominent role that those who promoted election falsehoods have in the state Republican Party. Several other Republicans involved in the fake voter plot were part of the Michigan delegation that attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.
Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who tried to cast doubt on the 2020 election results through multiple investigations, is running for re-election and faces several other Republicans. He is one of the multiple so-called “constitutional sheriffs” who have promoted conspiracies in recent years and believe that their power in a county is greater than that of any other official.
