'It’s my obligation': Clerk punts retirement to mount write-in bid against election denier
In the latest development in the unfolding drama in a small Michigan community, an ex-GOP elections clerk who was planning to retire from office is now mounting a write-in campaign to stop an election denier who won the primary and was otherwise running unopposed in the general election.
Sheryl Guy, who has run Antrim County's elections office for years, was reportedly exploring the drastic move in August, in the event that Victoria Bishop won the nomination to succeed her. Now, with her worst fears realized and Bishop securing the GOP ticket, she is putting her plan into action, according to The Washington Post.
Antrim County, a conservative-leaning resort community of roughly 25,000 people on the shores of Grand Traverse Bay, has become a major focus of conspiracy theorists who believe former President Donald Trump's 2020 election loss in Michigan was fraudulent.
A technical glitch briefly caused Antrim County to report a landslide victory for Biden in the area during the initial count. It was swiftly corrected, and Trump eventually won the county by roughly 3,000 votes. But Trump loyalists seized on the brief error as evidence that Guy tried to rig the results.
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Bishop, the wife of a local talk radio host, has attacked Guy in her campaign, and vowed to purge the voter rolls and force a switch to hand-counting ballots if elected. Guy, who has now left the Republican Party after being disillusioned by the attacks on the system, responded with a write-in campaign to uphold election integrity.
“It’s my obligation to do this, to do what’s right,” Guy told reporters.
Local election officials are essential to the smooth administration of elections, noted the Post. Among their duties are to "register voters, mail absentee ballots, oversee in-person early voting, conduct Election Day activities, count ballots and transmit the results to the state for certification."
However, as Trump's conspiracy theories have spread, these workers have "been shoved into the political limelight and subjugated to routine harassment," the Post wrote. "A wave of election officials have quit or retired in recent years, and their departures create openings that could be filled by those who want to transform long-standing voting procedures."
Similar fights have unfolded across the country.
In Maricopa County, Arizona, which contains the city of Phoenix and is the core of the state's population, GOP recorder Stephen Richer faced abuse and threats for years and lost his primary to a MAGA loyalist. Other such panics have happened in red counties like Antrim: two years ago in Gillespie County, Texas, home to the conservative-leaning Hill Country community of Fredricksburg, the entire elections staff was driven to resign by harassment.