In an interview with Nicolle Wallace on MSNBC, Michigan’s Secretary of State expressed her displeasure with ongoing efforts nationwide to audit the 2020 election, and with the implementation of various voter integrity measures.
“I think we’re seeing an escalation in the war on democracy on three fronts,” Jocelyn Benson (D) said. “One, this continued spreading of the ‘Big Lie.’ It is growing, it is not ceding, and it’s been fed by instances like what’s happening in Arizona. And then secondly, we have this lie being codified in nearly every state in this country – as you mentioned – Georgia, Texas, Florida, even here in Michigan – we’ve got 39 bills that ultimately try to undo the policies that led to such high turnout and such a secure election in 2020.”
But Republicans claim that measures like “no excuse” absentee voting, and voting without being required to show an identification, made the 2020 election less secure. During the 2012 election cycle, before former President Barack Obama was reelected, even left-leaning newspapers like The New York Times shared concerns of fraud via absentee voting.
Now, the political left claims that neither error nor fraud were possible in the 2020 election, and anyone who shares the concern of the “paper of record” from just eight years ago is a “conspiracy theorist” who is perpetuating a dangerous lie.
“Those who are trying to undermine democracy and who did so in the months immediately following the election, have not stopped,” Benson said. “Indeed they have just escalated. Their effort is a national, coordinated, partisan, well-funded strategy that will continue through, I believe, not just the midterms, but 2024, where the same forces that emerged in 2020 will be back, but this time will be stronger.
Earlier in the interview, Benson commented on the ongoing audit of the election results in Maricopa County, Arizona.
She complained that residents of certain states, including Arizona, were requesting forensic audits of the 2020 votes in their states. She also said that the audits “weren’t audits at all.”
“They don’t follow any secure protocols,” Benson said. “[They don’t] have reliable results because they don’t have a reliable procedure that is in any way related to what an audit should be.”
Wallace did not ask Benson how an audit should be conducted, and Benson did not offer an explanation voluntarily.
Watch the full interview here.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a contributor at The Michigan Star and The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to dabroscareports@gmail.com.