November 18, 2020

Michigan Republicans Abandon Their Effort to Block Election Results

They reversed course at the last minute, thanks to an outpouring of Zoom protest.

A Republican election challenger watches over election inspectors in Detroit. David Goldman/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Two Republican officials who initially refused to certify the election results in Wayne County, Michigan, abruptly abandoned their apparent effort to reject the will of voters to help Donald Trump after a wave of public outpouring and anger.

The stunt from the two GOP officials, William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, to block certification in the county, which includes Detroit, on Tuesday had briefly threatened to invalidate the county’s votes which, if successful, could have swung the state where Trump lost to Joe Biden by nearly 150,000 votes, and marked a stunning display of partisanship on behalf of the president. (Hartmann’s Facebook page revealed a string of right-wing, racist memes about Barack Obama.) But hours of protest, which primarily happened over Zoom, appeared to convince Hartmann and Palmer to back down on the condition that Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson conducts an audit of the county’s results.

A particularly vociferous dressing-down came from Michigan resident Ned Staebler, who accused the pair of blatant racism by rejecting the vote in majority-Black Detroit.

“The stain of racism that you, William Hartmann and Monica Palmer, have just covered yourself in is going to follow you throughout history,” Staebler said over Zoom. “Your grandchildren are going to think of you like Bull Connor or George Wallace. Monica Palmer and William Hartman will forever be known in southeastern Michigan as two racists who did something so unprecedented that they disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Black voters in the city of Detroit because they were ordered to.”

Trump, who praised the effort by Hartmann and Palmer shortly after they reversed course, has continued to baselessly claim that there was election fraud in Wayne County. 

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate