In a sparsely populated Michigan county, local voters have booted an elections clerk from office after this individual, Stephanie Scott, helped spread conspiracy theories about the integrity of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 and refused to comply with routine processes for handling the electronic equipment used in elections.
Voters were faced this week with whether to recall, meaning remove, Scott, and most of those participating in the balloting supported a replacement named Suzy Roberts, according to an Associated Press report. Scott isn’t alone. From Coffee County, Georgia, to Mesa County, Colorado, local figures involved in running elections who’ve been sympathetic to Trump and conspiracy theorists’ cause have helped facilitate and, to varying degrees, directly participated in efforts to remove at least data from the established systems for its handling. With somewhat more official cover, state Republicans in Arizona infamously kickstarted an audit of election results from 2020 in that state’s Maricopa County that left local officials needing to spend millions to replace the bungled equipment swept into the quest for imaginary fraud.
The county in Michigan where Scott was pushed from office this week went heavily for Trump in 2020 election results, indicating that even longtime Republicans aren’t just blindly accepting Trump’s election lunacy. Scott’s time in power was short-lived, having ascended to the position only in the same elections in 2020 on which she cast doubt. Before elections meant to be held in November of the year following Scott’s victory, she lost legal powers to administer elections. Scott “allegedly refused to allow a contractor to perform preventive maintenance and failed to conduct accuracy tests,” a report from the Associated Press also noted. She also temporarily held onto a tablet that was part of an electronic tabulator for elections, from which she or others could have accessed sensitive data. Police seized the item.
There have been conspiracy theory-driven ambitions in election deniers’ circles towards preserving data from elections on the false premise evidence of non-existent fraud could be lost.
