I don't know if Bion is still following along but his fears about DT trying to prevent or at least delay the certification of U.S. election results is proving to be quite accurate. The campaign is trying to prevent certification in all the states they are disputing, including Michigan where Biden won by 2.6% of the vote. The results playing out now have been particularly ugly in Wayne County, home to Detroit and Michigan's largest city. Detroit is also the nation's largest black city with app. 80% African American population. The two white Republican members of the board responsible for certifying election results initially refused to do so. Now the president has invited Republican lawmakers from Michigan's state legislature to meet with him at the White House. This is in keeping with the second phase of the plan described in Kornelius's article Bion brought up.
Once again, white people are trying to take the vote away from black people - the latest iteration of an age-old story:
At one point, a Republican board member, Monica Palmer, had made a motion to “certify the results in the communities other than the city of Detroit” — a move that would effectively disenfranchise one of the nation’s major predominantly Black cities.
Mark Brewer, an election law expert and a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party, noted that Ms. Palmer’s motion would have blocked certification for Detroit, where Black residents make up 78 percent of the population, and certified the results for communities like Livonia, where the Black population is 4.4 percent.
“Monica Palmer sat there and said she’s willing to approve the results of the lily-white city of Livonia, which had the second-highest number of out-of-balance precincts, but she won’t certify the city of Detroit,” Mr. Brewer said. “There is no reason to single out the city of Detroit for this racist treatment.”
[...]
Even after the board cleared its initial stalemate, the night provided fresh evidence that, at the very least, Mr. Trump’s campaign is managing to disrupt what has long been an orderly process of certifying the clear winner of the popular and Electoral College votes and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power. Though Mr. Trump’s supporters have appeared to delight in his attacks, the Michigan confusion showcased a counterforce — angry voters who would not abide any possibility that their votes would be nullified by the president’s maneuvering.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politic...
November 19, 2020 at 6:41 PM EST
Michigan GOP official leaning toward seeking to delay certification of vote
By Beth Reinhard
One of the two Republican members of the four-member Michigan canvassing board, Norman Shinkle, said Thursday said that he is leaning toward asking for a delay in the certification vote and calling for an audit. The board is scheduled to vote Monday.
“I do think with all of the potential problems, if any of them are true, an audit is appropriate,” he said in a telephone interview. “I take one step at a time, and if we can get more information, why not?”
Among his concerns: the debunked claim by Trump allies, including attorney Sidney Powell, that Dominion Voting Systems, the Colorado-based manufacturer of voting machines, deleted thousands of Trump votes. “If Dominion was fudging votes, that’s a serious problem,” he said. “If it’s true. I don’t know. I have to be convinced of it. That’s why the audit makes sense.”
Shinkle said his duties go beyond certifying the election — to get to the bottom of any alleged improprieties — even though no evidence of widespread fraud has been found. “Right now the idea to check into some of these accusations seem to make sense to me,” he said. “We have to have people trust our system going forward.”
Shinkle is under intense scrutiny in part because his wife, Mary Shinkle, filed an affidavit supporting a federal lawsuit by the Trump campaign. The lawsuit was withdrawn. Shinkle said he had not read the affidavit and that people should not assume he would be biased by it. “That’s almost an accusation against marriage,” he said. “My wife can do whatever she wants to do.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/elections/2020...
Trump invites Michigan Republican leaders to meet him at White House as he escalates attempts to overturn election results
DETROIT — President Trump has invited the leaders of Michigan’s Republican-controlled state legislature to meet him in Washington on Friday, according to a person familiar with those plans, as the president and his allies continue an extraordinary campaign to overturn the results of an election he lost.
[...]
But the president now appears to be using the full weight of his office to challenge the election results, as he and his allies reach out personally to state and local officials in an intensifying effort to halt the certification of the vote in key battleground states.
[...]
Legal experts condemned the president’s actions, saying he was trying to use the power of his office to alter the vote.
“To bring the weight of the White House and the presidency onto an individual county canvassing board commissioner about what to do with certification is an incredible assault on the democratic process,” said Richard H. Pildes, a constitutional law professor at New York University. “No question about that.”
Joanna Lydgate, the national director of the Voter Protection Program, said that “there is no basis in fact or law for failing to certify the election.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/17/us/politic...
