Wayne County's would-be election thieves humiliate themselves, expose overt racism of GOP

[marmar]

This article is paywalled, but I tried to excerpt the key graphs


(Detroit Free Press) Donald Trump's brazen campaign to disenfranchise Black voters came to an ugly head Tuesday evening when two GOP apparatchiks refused the certify the results of Wayne County's Nov. 3 election, throwing the fate of Michigan's 16 electoral votes into uncertainty.

The plot fizzled a few hours later — but only after a spontaneous eruption of rage by voters and poll workers watching the spectacle unfold on Zoom, and not before the would-be election thieves had humiliated themselves on national TV and exposed the overt racism at the heart of their party's vote suppression effort.

....(snip)....

Never mind that election veterans in both parties dismissed those discrepancies as products of the human error endemic to large municipal elections, and that not one of the hundreds of independent observers who monitored the Detroit ballot account provided any evidence that a single vote had been falsified.

And never mind that Democratic canvassing board members brushed aside similar discrepancies to certify the 2016 election in which Trump carried Michigan by 10,700 votes, a fraction of Biden's 148,000 victory margin this year.

....(snip)....

And as if the optics of two white suburbanites threatening to negate the votes of the state's largest city weren't cringe-worthy enough — Hartmann is from Wyandotte, and Palmer moved to Grosse Pointe Woods from western Michigan three years ago — Palmer turned up the dial, allowing that she might be willing to certify election results in Detroit's white suburbs if the ballots of the Black-majority city were excluded from the countywide tally.

....(snip)....

But it was too late. Palmer and Hartmann had already expressed their contempt for the electoral process and slandered the integrity of the hundreds election workers who counted Wayne County's ballots. Now the nation knows how far their party was prepared to go to muzzle the voters of Michigan's largest city, and the record of their attempted theft has been burned into the public memory as indelibly as the video images of Alabama police officers turning firehoses on civil rights protesters in the 1960s. .............(more)

https://www.freep.com/story/opinion/columnists/brian-dickerson/2020/11/18/canvassers-wayne-county-election-results-certification/6334900002/

[Cha]

1. TY.. Bookmark to read

later!

[BusyBeingBest]

2. A good read, thanks.

I'm still shaking my head at how obvious and ballsy this attempt was.

[gratuitous]

3. Koup Klutz Klan: Fail

But just because Palmer and Hartmann had a failure of nerve, doesn't mean they aren't still raging bigots.

[malaise]

8. Nicely played

Fuck the racists

[Lucinda]

4. ...

[Mike 03]

5. Thank you.

What those two idiots did last night was absolutely horrific.

I wonder if they realized their debacle would be breaking news on most major networks.

[SWBTATTReg]

6. Now all we have is fruit cake in the GSA refusing to write a letter that authorizes

expenditures for Biden's presidential expenditures/etc., access to government services to prep for his presidential term...

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

29. She should be called before the House to explain why she's breaking the law.

Let's see how the congressional Repugs defend her actions by their friendly questions. Make them show her actions are part of a plan by the Repugs to sabotage a Biden administration at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.

At the same time, petition a Federal court to make her do the job she swore to do. Make her stand before a judge and explain under oath her refusal to follow the law.

She's like that woman - Kim something - who wouldn't let her office issue marriage licenses to gay couples, because it contradicted her religious beliefs.

She should also be called out in the press. Why is she doing something that no other person in her position has ever done? Why is she acting in a way to the detriment of a Biden administration? What does her boss have to say about what she's doing?

Who gains by her inaction? Subpoena her financial records to see if there are any unexplained large deposits in the past month.

[SWBTATTReg]

31. Yes, Ms. Davis was a living nightmare. You're right to bring her up as a comparison, it's very

appropriate. I'm sure that Mr. Biden will prevail. And this is getting ridiculous. I agree w/ you that she should go before a judge to explain her illegal actions. Be safe and take care!

[Turbineguy]

7. I suspect somebody had a quiet word with them

about their future of giving everything they had to defense attorneys.

[George II]

9. Unrelated to this, there was an ethics complaint against Palmer - the hearing was this morning!

[SunSeeker]

14. Good! Got a link, more info? nt

[George II]

18. There was a story early this morning about the hearing being on Zoom, but never saw anything else.

[SunSeeker]

19. I just found this. Is this what you are talking about?

Complaint to unseat Monica Palmer from Wayne Co. Board of Canvassers to be investigated

The Wayne County Board of Ethics voted to look into a complaint challenging Monica Palmer's standing on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers on Wednesday.

The complaint follows a sea of criticism from Black and civil rights leaders who were outraged by an initially split vote Tuesday by the board of canvassers that denied certification of election results. Palmer, along with Republican William Hartmann, later changed their votes to favor certification after a barrage of complaints.

Critics said Palmer was outright racist and suppressing minority voters after she said she was open to certifying results outside of the city of Detroit and that some precincts were out of balance. Hartmann said there have been problems with Detroit tabulation and election administration in the past that needed to be fixed. 

Wednesday's vote allows Palmer 21 days to respond to the complaint, filed by Thomas Breutsch. The process then allots Breutsch seven days to respond to Palmer's response and then gives Palmer another seven days to respond to his response. The board is expected to address the complaint at its next meeting Jan. 20.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2020/11/18/wayne-county-board-of-canvassers-monica-palmer-complaint/6339134002/

[demmiblue]

10. K&R

[keithbvadu2]

11. How long until the Trumpsters threaten the two repubs' lives and their families?

[Roy Rolling]

12. The Twitterverse Erupted

As soon as it was announced, they were exposed as right-wing nutjobs and the plot became crystal clear.

They awoke the woke people who spoke.

[iluvtennis]

13. Shameful what they did - black/brown people have been disenfranchised enough. nt

[SergeStorms]

27. That's the republican "strategy".

I'd say "new strategy" but they've been using this for decades. All rural votes will be counted, and all votes from urban areas will not. It's a perfect "winning" strategy for the GOP.

[SunSeeker]

15. Wayne County Board of Canvassers' Monica Palmer and William Hartmann are stone cold racists. nt

Last edited Wed Nov 18, 2020, 01:27 PM - Edit history (1)

[malaise]

17. Then you're not looking but hey

welcome to DU - enjoy your stay.

[SunSeeker]

20. They were willing to certify white districts outside Detroit but not Detroit, which is 82.7% Black

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2020/11/18/wayne-county-board-of-canvassers-monica-palmer-complaint/6339134002/

Detroit's population has the highest percentage of African Americans (82.7%) of any city in the US. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_large_African-American_populations#Top_10_Cities_of_over_100,000_with_the_highest_percentage_of_African-American_people

You think it's just a coincidence of politics that they wanted to exclude Detroit from Wayne County totals?

[sdfernando]

22. They have eyes but they do not see.

They have ears but the do not hear.

Enjoy you stay.

[SunSeeker]

23. Take a looky at William Hartmann's Facebook page:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

[BobTheSubgenius]

21. In a just system - a just world - they would face consequences for this.

How is this not a civil rights issue?

[Duppers]

24. Exactly!

[SunSeeker]

26. Looks like Monica Palmer may be removed ftom the Board of Canvassers.

https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/wayne/2020/11/18/wayne-county-board-of-canvassers-monica-palmer-complaint/6339134002/

[Barbara2423]

25. They are anti-American

[VA_Jill]

28. They're just mad

because they got called out in front of the whole country and they looked like sore losers...which of course they are. So screw 'em.

[maxsolomon]

30. This was precisely what Trump is asking his fellow elected Republicans to do.

Subvert the vote at every possible choke point where they hold Power. Trash the place; create chaos.

Frankly, I don't understand why they backed down. Because Democrats yelled at them?

[Hermit-The-Prog]

32. Republicans learn the 3 Rs: Racism, Regression, Recidivism