Although it’s been three years since Joe Biden took the presidential oath of office, over 14 months since the 2022 Michigan elections, and voting equipment purchases and training for the 2024 elections has already occurred, a handful of residents from across Leelanau County still flock to the government center in Suttons Bay before almost every public meeting of elected officials.
During the five minutes allotted for public comment at the beginning and end of these meetings, these residents — often clad in red and identifying themselves as members of the “patriot” group — implore Leelanau County commissioners to implement election reforms.
A mistrust of technology is a common theme in these comments, with patriot group members often attempting to cast doubt on voting hardware and software publisher Dominion Voting Systems — which made equipment used in Leelanau County — and they call on the county commissioners to mandate that ballots be counted by hand instead of machine.
At a Jan. 24 committee of the whole meeting where the commissioners gathered to hear a presentation on finance structure, a dozen attendees announced their desire to “yield” their five minutes of public comment time to one resident — Jim Kobberstad — so that he could speak about alleged “security flaws in our county’s computer election system” for up to 55 minutes during public comment at a future meeting.
At the suggestion of board chairman Ty Wessell, the county board went into closed session to seek legal advice on handling this unusual request. When they returned, Wessell told Kobberstad and his colleagues that they would give him 10 minutes to present that day and would give them 55 minutes to present at the next county board executive session scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Feb. 13.
Commenting in retrospect to the newspaper the following week, Wessell said he “second guessed” this decision. Wessell said there is currently nothing in the board rules and procedures that prohibits members of the public sharing their time like this but added that the board will review these procedures at the Feb. 20 regular session meeting “to prevent that from happening in the future.”
When some commissioners started questioning this request at the Jan. 24 meeting, Commissioner Melinda Lautner noted that this “has been done in the past.” Wessell told the newspaper that similar requests were allowed under previous board chairman Will Bunek.
All cases contesting the 2020 election results in Michigan have been dismissed or dropped. If there is any truth to these allegations, however, the county board cannot simply change the voting system without violating state laws, according to email communication from County Clerk Michelle Crocker provided to the newspaper.
“The Board of Commissioners does not have the authority to change the way we use ballot tabulators and is without legal authority to determine how votes will be counted. State Law expressly requires the use of a certified electronic ballot counting system… The choice of the system is up to the County Clerk and I did consult with local clerks prior to making my decision. This decision is not up to the Board of Commissioners,” Crocker’s email says.
Since these procedures are determined at a state level, Leelanau County commissioners would need to appeal to lawmakers to affect change. County board members are not the only ones who can communicate with policymakers, however. Groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and Michigan Legal Help offer information and resources to help the public communicate with legislators effectively.
The Leelanau County Election Commission held a public accuracy test Monday to demonstrate the election software and hardware in preparation for the presidential preference primary on Feb. 27. Members of the election commission — including Probate Judge Marian Kromkowski and Clerk Crocker — said the test went well.
“The testing went very smoothly. The results came out exactly as we knew that they would, based on the parameters we have to test within,” Crocker told the newspaper after the accuracy test. “Into the testing are built in overvotes, undervotes, stray marks, so we’re testing every facet of the machine.”
