Election deniers flood state elections bureau with records requests
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In what officials are calling a coordinated effort to undermine voters, believers of former President Trump's false assertion that the 2020 election was illegitimate are overwhelming local election offices with records requests.
Driving the news: Trump supporters have swamped election offices across the country with bad faith records requests, including in Michigan, the Washington Post reports.
- Michigan's Bureau of Elections has spent 600 hours processing records requests this year — about triple the time it has spent on them in the past — the Post reports.
What they're saying: "There is no doubt that the increase in records requests of our office, as well as clerks of counties, cities and townships across Michigan, is part of the nationally coordinated, well-funded and multiyear effort to undermine the will of the voters in a past or future election," Jake Rollow, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State, tells Axios.
- "The nonsensical requests and threats of legal action seek to overwhelm election officials and their often small staff, who already worked long hours to ensure that every eligible citizen can vote and have their vote counted."
Details: Some officials don't recognize the technical-sounding documents they are being asked to produce.
- And the requesters of these documents often don't even know what they are asking to be provided, the Post reports.
The big picture: The requests are the latest example of the pressure election officials have faced since Trump's refusal to accept defeat and his continued campaign to undermine the election system.
- Democrats in Lansing introduced legislation for greater protections for election workers, which has been with the elections and ethics committee since last August.