RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel, Michigan GOP chair pushing to delay state certification 2 weeks
Two days before the Michigan state board of canvassers is set to meet to weigh whether to certify the election in the state, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and Michigan Republican Party Chair Laura Cox submitted a letter to the four-member bipartisan body asking to delay certification for two weeks and first audit the results in Wayne County.
"This board faces a stark choice: it can either ignore numerical anomalies and credible reports of procedural irregularities, leaving the distrust and sense of procedural disenfranchisement felt by many Michigan voters to fester for years; or it can adjourn for fourteen days to allow for a full audit and investigation into those anomalies and irregularities before certifying the results of the 2020 General Election, allowing all Michiganders to have confidence in the results," the two GOP chairs write in the letter obtained by ABC News.
McDaniel and Cox are asking the board, which is meeting on Monday, to grant the request made by Republican Senate candidate John James to allow for "a full, transparent audit" of Wayne County's results before certifying the election statewide.
James sought to challenge incumbent Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who was projected by ABC News to win reelection.
"The procedural and accounting irregularities identified by the James Campaign’s request are credible, deeply concerning, and threaten to undermine Michigander’s faith in the integrity of the November 2020 General Election. To simply gloss over those irregularities now without a thorough audit would only foster feelings of distrust among Michigan’s electorate," they continue.
They point to the audit completed in Georgia before the results were certified, and they also quote Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as saying "with the margin being so close, it will require a full by-hand recount in each county."
But every state is different.
In Michigan, the secretary of state made clear on Friday that by state law, it is impossible to audit the results before the election is certified because "officials do not have legal access to the documents needed to complete audits until the certification."
Also, the margin in Michigan is nowhere near as close as Georgia's, with Joe Biden currently leading by more than 154,000 votes in Michigan, compared to just over 12,000 votes in Georgia.
"We implore you to listen to the pleas of your voters and order the audit," the letter from the GOP chairs reads.
The call for an audit in Wayne County, which is home to Detroit, a city where Black residents make up nearly 80% of the population, comes after a head-spinning reversal from two Republican members of the county board of canvassers earlier this week. The two GOP members of the board first voted against certification of the county’s results, citing precincts with “out-of-balance” reports, meaning that the number of votes cast and the number of voters signed in at the polling place were mismatched. Hours later, they backtracked and voted for certification, only to seek to rescind that vote the following day — a move that has been disputed by legal experts.
The number of votes at issue in Wayne County is also too small to influence the outcome of the election. In Wayne County, Biden is ahead by over 300,000 votes with nearly 70% of the vote.
The letter is the latest move by Republicans to sow doubt over the election’s results in the battleground. In an extraordinary move on Friday, President Trump met with top state lawmakers from Michigan, part of a strategy that now appears to increasingly rely on pressuring GOP state leaders to try to overturn the results of the election.
After nearly two hours in the White House, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and House Speaker Lee Chatfield released a joint statement reiterating, "we will follow the law and follow the normal process regarding Michigan's electors."
-ABC News’ Kendall Karson, Katherine Faulders, Will Steakin