The Leelanau County Election Commission held a public accuracy test ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election at the government center Oct. 17.
County Clerk Michelle Crocker and Probate Judge Marian Kromkowski answered questions from audience members who attended the test.
Crocker said that a total of 1,582 ballots were fed into the tabulator, one by one, during the test. These included every permutation of complete and incomplete ballots that voters may produce, including “spoiled” ballots that were marked incorrectly and therefore invalid. According to Crocker, the test produced 100% accurate results, and all valid ballots were counted correctly.
The event was more sparsely attended than the Jan. 29 public accuracy test before the presidential preference primary, but Crocker had prepared many handouts and several displays to assure visitors that the election system is accurate and secure. These included slides from the Secretary of State, information from which can be found on michigan. gov/sos/elections/security.
Among the handouts were: an article on election security by the Michigan Bureau of Elections linking to michigan. gov/electionsecurity, a fact sheet about Dominion Voting Systems, a United States Election Assistance Commission certification for Dominion software as an accredited voting system, and more. Contact the clerk’s office for additional information about these handouts.
When Crocker and Kromkowski began answering questions about two hours into the test, they encouraged the public to pick up copies of these handouts, as meeting attendees — including Jim Kobberstad of Lake Leelanau— had apparently not looked at them yet.
Kobberstad is a county resident who frequently attends Leelanau County Board of Commissioners (BOC) meetings to voice concerns about alleged “security flaws in our county’s computer election system.”
This culminated in January when a dozen affiliates of the local Republican Party successfully petitioned the board to donate their five minutes of public comment time to Kobberstad so he could talk about election issues for a total of 55 minutes.
Board Chairman Ty Wessell said that he “second guessed” this decision. The county’s meeting rules were changed soon afterwards to prevent people from giving their public comment time to others and direct the audience to make comments on items that aren’t on the meeting agenda only during the second public comment at the end of the meeting.
Kobberstad was back at the government center for the county’s annual meeting this month, where he handed a “call for remedy of disenfranchised votes (to) County Commissioner Ty Wessels (sic).” In this document, he asks “all Leelanau government officials involved with county elections to sign the following affidavit,” which says: “I accept all responsibilities for conducting a safe, secure and accurate county election and waive any and all immunity I may have if the local voting results are found to be flawed or in error, due to the voting equipment, software, procedures, support vendors and/or government agencies that I have chosen and/or are working with for the November 2024 election.”
The county commissioners and Clerk Crocker did not sign this document at the meeting. Chairman Wessell said that this was “an unusual request (and) obviously, commissioners could not sign anything with any BOC authority without a vote of the commission.” Clerk Crocker said she accepts responsibility for supervising the election but is not willing to waive her rights.
According to Crocker, votes are electronically scanned or tabulated, but any candidate who loses to their opponent has the right to request a recount by hand. Earlier this year, Kobberstad asked the county board to change their voting system to hand-count all ballots.
As previously reported, Crocker responded by saying that voting procedures are determined at a state level in Lansing and individual counties cannot change their voting systems without violating state laws. Since then, Kobberstad has advocated for the formation of a county “elections integrity commission.”
Now, however, Kobberstad seems to either want local officials to sign documents waiving their rights and holding them personally responsible for statewide election procedures, or to illegally adopt their own voting system. Likening state election laws to cancer, Kobberstad argued that “we are enabling this process to continue at local levels by not doing anything about it.”
Crocker and Kobberstad engaged one another in a lengthy conversation during the public accuracy test. During this discussion, Crocker reaffi rmed her earlier claims that defying state election laws is “not an option” and any changes to the voting system should be proposed by petition.
“The majority of voters wanted to vote by absentee ballot without having to say, ‘I’m 60 (years old), I’m unable to come to the polls,’ or whatever,” Crocker said. “When people can’t agree in southern Michigan, we get petition drives. We wanted this little thing, and we get all these little things added. The proposals then go on the ballot. We’re not doing anything that they didn’t vote for. How do you change that? Circulate your own petition, get enough signatures, and get it passed into law.”
Crocker also disagreed with Kobberstad’s claims that non-U.S. citizens can vote by using their driver’s license as a form of voter identification. Crocker said attempting to vote as a noncitizen is illegal and can result in deportation, fines, and jail time.
After the Oct. 17 elections accuracy test, Crocker led several election worker training sessions. In Michigan, early inperson voting starts Saturday. In Leelanau County, the early voting site is at the government center at 8527 E. Government Center Drive in Suttons Bay. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Nov. 3.
