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Michigan election officials on Monday certified Joe Biden’s 154,000-vote victory in the state amid brazen attempts by President Donald Trump to subvert the election results.
The state canvassing board, which has two Republicans and two Democrats, confirmed the results in a 3-0 vote with one abstention. Allies of Trump and the losing Republican Senate candidate John James had urged the panel to delay voting for two weeks to audit votes in Wayne County, where Detroit is located.
The move is another setback in Trump’s efforts to use unconventional means to undermine the results of the Nov.3 election and comes even after he made direct proposals to Republican officials in the state by inviting them to the White House the last week.
Under Michigan law, Biden claims all 16 electoral votes. Biden won by 2.8 percentage points, a higher margin than in other states where Trump is contesting the results, including Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
Some Trump allies had expressed hope that state lawmakers could intervene in the selection of Republican voters in states that do not certify. That risky gamble is no longer possible in Michigan.
Trump’s efforts to avoid the inevitable, the formal recognition of his defeat, met increasingly tough resistance from the courts and fellow Republicans with only three weeks left until the electoral college convened to certify Biden’s victory. Time and again, Trump’s challenges and baseless accusations of conspiracy and widespread fraud have been dismissed as states move forward in confirming their results.
“The duty of the board today is very clear,” said Aaron Van Langevelde, the Republican vice president. “We have a duty to certify this election based on these results. That is very clear. We are limited to these returns. I’m not going to argue that we are not. “
Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a lawyer for the state Democratic party, told pollsters that the attacks on election results “are part of a racist campaign, led by future President Trump, to disparage the cities of this country with large Black populations, including Detroit, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. “
Biden crushed the president by more than 330,000 votes in Wayne County, where two local Republican pollsters who certified the results tried unsuccessfully to reverse course last week after being summoned by Trump.
