Destroying Democracy in Michigan
So, I thought some of you might be interested in what's been going on in Michigan this week.
Tuesday was the deadline for candidates to file to get their names on the ballot in our August primary and November general election. One of our "Democrat" state representatives, Roy Schmidt, filed his paperwork for reelection back in February.
Schmidt represents Grand Rapids, one of Michigan's largest cities located on the western, quite conservative side of the state. But since his district is urban, it traditionally has had a Democrat representative. That changed somewhat last year with redistricting, and now the district is more of a 50/50 split with a slight lean toward Republican. Even so, no Republican had filed to run in that race.
Again, the deadline to file was Tuesday at 4 p.m. Around 3:45 p.m., an unknown 22-year-old filed as a Democratic challenger in a primary. And then, around 3:50 p.m., Schmidt withdrew as a Democrat and refiled as a Republican. With less than 10 minutes to the filing deadline, and despite holding a Democratic fundraiser for his campaign four days earlier and having volunteers knocking on doors the day before, Schmidt turned his coat inside out.
That betrayal was hard enough on Democrats. We are working hard to take back the state house and needed to add nine seats to do it. Now we'll need 10. It made the job that much harder.
But what is worse it the apparent election fraud that appears to have been committed.
You see, that 22-year-old? He's the son of Schmidt's friend from elementary school and the best friend of Schmidt's nephew. And those last minute filings? Both were submitted by the same courier. And Schmidt's resubmission papers? Notarized by a staffer of the Republican Speaker of the House two weeks earlier - even though Schmidt swears he didn't make up his mind to change parties until the night before he did it.
There's more.
That 22-year-old, Matt Mojzak, lied on his filing papers. He claimed to have lived in Kent County for 22 years. In truth, earlier the same day his papers were filed to run for office, he changed his address with the Secretary of State's office from a home in Ottawa County to one in Kent County. Michigan law says you must be a resident of a county for 30 days before filing. And the address he used is his grandma's home. And even her home isn't located in the district where he said he wanted to run.
Why was this done? Because by having Mojzak on the ballot, it would make it even harder for Democrats to have a candidate in the race. We would have to run a write-in candidate and the vote would be split between the two.
In other words, as far as most people can tell, this whole incident was carefully engineered to hand Roy his reelection as a Republican without any serious challenge. To make it clear - the Republicans tried to make sure the people of the district would have no choice in the election.
The state attorney general has been asked to investigate, but as he's a rather Republican idealogue, who knows if anything will come of it. But yesterday, Mojzak said he was "withdrawling" from his race to become a state "Representitive." A real rocket surgeon, this one. No matter, the demand for an inquest goes on, and it also includes Speaker of the House Jase Bolger, Schmidt and the chairman of the Republican House campaign effort.
All this is happening against a backdrop of Republicans crying about voter fraud that doesn't seem to exist, and using that as a rationale to make it more difficult for the elderly and poor to vote.
Voter fraud. But what they have done is election fraud.
Watch out. If this works, I'm sure they'll try bringing this tactic to a voting booth near you.
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Diane
Anishinaabe in MI & mom to Leo, Sophie, Taz & Nigel, members of Dogs Against Romney, Cat Division
"We ride inside--HISS!”
