LANSING, Michigan — This year’s presidential election was supposed to be the highlight for Sheryl Guy, who was looking forward to retiring after more than four decades in the clerk’s office in Antrim County in northern Michigan.
Tuesday’s result primary that could disrupt those plans.
Five candidates are vying in the Republican primary to replace 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 those candidates has spread election conspiracies since the 2020 presidential election and has been an outspoken critic of the election board. Province of Antrim came into the national spotlight when then-President Donald Trump forced to destroy the results in Michigan and other swing states.
If the skeptic wins the primaries, Guy says she plans to run for the general election.
“I fear that the taxpayers and the county are becoming part of their agenda,” she said. “I can’t just hand over an office that I’ve held for over 45 years to an election conspiracy theorist.”
The Antrim County race is just one of several in Michigan and other states holding primaries on Tuesday. Michigan’s is the latest with Republican candidates running promoting election conspiracies or have been openly skeptical about voting and counting votesDespite no proof by widespread fraud or problems in national elections.
This year’s primaries have served as a barometer of Republican voters’ enthusiasm for candidates who continue to spread false claims about the 2020 election in a party where a strong majority still believe that Democratic President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. Yet the results are mixed.
Last week, Republican voters in Arizona voted Maricopa County the head of the election office, who had tirelessly defended the legitimacy of state elections and had been persecuted for years, was removed from office. threats and intimidation to do that. They elected a state legislature that has questioned several aspects of the electoral system, and has set up what is almost certainly a high-profile general election battle in a county that a permanent target by election conspiracy theorists.
Earlier this year, a county commissioner in a crucial political county in another state where presidential elections still play a major role, Nevada, survived a primary challenge of election conspiracy theorists.
In Michigan, Antrim County isn’t the only place where conspiracy theorists are on the Republican primary ballot.
Two Republicans who belong to a group charged for acting as fake presidential electors after the 2020 election to become their party’s candidates — one for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives and the other for a local clerk position. The county sheriff in southwest Michigan who has continued the investigation false claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 elections, will face multiple Republican opponents for re-election.
The focus on Antrim County, a Republican-leaning county near the seaside resort 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 errorno problem with voting machines, and the results were quickly corrected to show Trump winning the county.
That did little to calm speculation that something sinister had taken place. Those who questioned Trump’s loss in Michigan were quick to seize on the error in reporting to suggest that voting machines were responsible for widespread fraudeven though there is no such evidence.
Guy, who says he voted for Trump in 2020, continues to be the target of baseless conspiracy theories and personal attacks.
Victoria Bishop, along with her husband Randy, a conservative radio host who has sued Guy, has been an outspoken proponent of election conspiracy theories and now wants to defend Guy’s position.
Bishop did not respond to phone and text messages seeking comment. Her husband said she would not comment by phone. Bishop’s social media pages say she aims to “restore the integrity of elections in Antrim County.” One of her plans is to Count each ballot manually casting to ensure they match the machine results.
Four other candidates are running in the Republican primary, including one Guy has endorsed. If Bishop wins, Guy said she will postpone her retirement to run as a write-in candidate in November.
“It’s not just my race. It’s the sheriff’s race. It’s the township races. We’re being infiltrated,” Guy said. “They’re coming in and trying to take over.”
Research has shown that manually counting ballots takes longer and is less accurate than machine counting.
“Some of these activists are pushing for changes in the election process that will 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, they take more time. And when you take more time, we’ve seen that there are unscrupulous candidates who will use that time in that vacuum to spread lies and potentially violence.”
In southeastern Michigan, Stanley Grot is running for re-election as Shelby Township clerk, a position that oversees local elections. Grot is excluded from racing all elections after last year’s indictment by the Attorney General of the State because he acted as a fake voter for Trump in 2020.
In response to a request for comment on his race and the charges, Grot replied, “No comment.”
Another accused fraudulent 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.
The candidacies of Grot and Lundgren represent the prominent role played by those who spread election lies in the state’s Republican Party. Several other Republicans involved in the voter fraud conspiracy were part of the Michigan delegation that attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.
Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has attempted to cast doubt on the results of the 2020 election through multiple investigations, is running for re-election against several other Republicans. He is one of several so-called “constitutional sheriffs” who have been spreading conspiracies in recent years and are convinced that their power in a region is greater than that of any other official.