Chris Thomas helped lead Michigan’s elections for 36 years. Through Democratic and Republican administrations, he directed the state Bureau of Elections, making sure voting went on untampered.
But watching the Jan. 6 insurrection hearings over the past couple weeks, including Tuesday’s that laid out former President Donald Trump’s plan to subvert the 2020 election by installing ‘fake electors’ in Michigan and other swing states, has given him an “unsettling” feeling.
“On one hand, I’m so happy I wasn’t running elections in 2020,” said Thomas, who left state government in 2017. “But on the other hand, it’s very disturbing to see how things have been spun here.”
Michigan has had an increasingly central role in the U.S. House select committee’s hearings, reaching a high point on Tuesday when lawmakers used interviews with three Michigan political leaders – former House Speaker Lee Chatfield, Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey and former state GOP chair Laura Cox – to show Trump helped coordinate invalid Electoral College voters.
Ultimately, 16 false electors – including current state GOP co-chair Meshawn Maddock – signed a document declaring themselves Michigan’s real electors. But police blocked them from entering the state Capitol on certification day, and Vice President Mike Pence shooed away the document when overseeing electoral vote counting at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Recap: Trump’s push for Michigan ‘fake electors’ a focus of fourth Jan. 6 hearing
For Thomas, Tuesday’s hearing showed that key Michigan officials like Chatfield, Shirkey and state and Wayne County canvassers “did not cave” to Trump’s pressure. But the continued pushing of false theories by the ex-President and his allies 19 months after the election make him worry about the next ones.
“That gives me hope that moving forward this will continue,” he said of officials following the law amid election challenges. “But it also creates a concern. It pointed out where the weak spots are and could emerge in the next, particularly two, elections.”
As a purple battleground where Trump lost to Joe Biden by only a few percentage points, Michigan was key to flipping the White House in 2020. In the election’s wake, unproven claims of a fraudulent result swirled.
Thomas noted that many of these claims can be debunked by the “red mirage,” the perception that Trump took a lead in Michigan on election night. That was only because state law prevents absentee ballots, which Democratic voters used much more than Republicans, from being counted until election day.
“So, most of the Republican, in-person votes were published and on television by midnight,” Thomas said. “However, the mail ballots were not completely done until late Wednesday evening.”
Chris Thomas, who left Michigan government in 2017 after 36 years as elections director, is shown in a Zoom meeting on Wednesday, June 22, 2022.Screenshot | Zoom
With same-day votes counted first, this created a perceived comeback by Biden over Trump, especially in large liberal strongholds like Detroit.
“What election officials need from the legislature is preprocessing,” Thomas said. “We need a couple of days – Sunday and Monday – to be able to open ballots, run them through the tabulators.”
Thirty-eight states already allow this, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. That includes Ohio, which has 17 days of preprocessing mail ballots. If Michigan gets two days, Thomas said, “about 90% will be reported shortly after the close of polls” and full results could be available “somewhere around midnight.”
“The news media would love it. Voters would love it. The red mirage would disappear,” he said.
The Jan. 6 hearings are not criminal proceedings, but they are making a case that could lead there, said Norm Eisen, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as House special counsel in Trump’s impeachment and trial.
“The hearings have established substantial evidence of possible criminal activity, including in Michigan, on the part of Donald Trump and those around him,” he said, as Trump’s allies have testified “he knew full well that he did not win the 2020 election.”
There could be a criminal case to be made in Michigan from Trump’s “direct involvement” in pushing fake electors, Eisen said, even if he sincerely believed he won the election.
“No matter what you think, you’re not allowed to put forward a forged electoral certificate,” Eisen said. “Whether you believe you won or lost, you can’t forge a document.”
State Attorney General Dana Nessel said earlier this year there is “absolutely” enough evidence to charge Michigan’s 16 false electors after she handed over an investigation to the feds. But she added state-level prosecution would happen if “there was not going to be any accountability federally.”
Related: Michigan AG says Republicans who faked election certificates ‘absolutely’ committed crimes
Thomas said he is “not sure” the false electoral certificate counts as a crime under state law, but he did say Michigan needs “tougher laws” regarding threats to election officials, after clerks in Detroit, Rochester Hills and Antrim County were confronted or harassed.
Even Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson was threatened by protesters at her home after the 2020 election, leading to “an omnipresent feeling of anxiety and dread that permeates our daily lives, and our families’ lives,” Benson said in a statement after Tuesday’s hearing.
“This is something that’s going to result in somebody getting hurt down the road,” Thomas said, especially as some candidates are “ginning up” poll challengers to expect fraud at counting centers on election day.
House Minority Leader Donna Lasinski, D-Scio Township, said she is worried what Trump’s election fraud push has wrought for Michigan’s future, including stolen election claims that she doesn’t see dying down soon.
Lasinski mentioned Kristina Karamo, the Trump-endorsed, election-denying Republican nominee trying to replace Benson. There’s also the letter 17 House Republicans sent Nessel last week urging her to investigate debunked election fraud claims in the new movie “2000 Mules.”
Related: 17 Michigan lawmakers want AG to investigate debunked “2000 Mules” claims
And one of Michigan’s false electors, Michele Lundgren, is running for a state House seat in Detroit this year. Another, Kent Vanderwood, is running for mayor of Wyoming.
“We know now that here in Michigan there were and are and continue to be real and verified attempts,” Lasinski said, “to delay the peaceful transfer of power, to question the 2020 election results and to lay the groundwork to overturn the upcoming election in ‘22 and particularly in ‘24.”
In the court of public opinion, however, have minds changed? After the first week of hearings, an Ipsos poll found 58% of Americans think Trump should be charged for his role in last year’s riot. Although, that’s up just four points since right after the attack.
But 21% of Republicans say Trump bears a “great deal” or “good amount” of responsibility for the insurrection, which Eisen said shows even the ex-President’s supporters are convincible.
“We need to talk to them one-on-one as our fellow Americans,” he said. “These are not bad people, but they are people who have been the victims of lies and disinformation. So, we need to bring them back just with patiently getting the truth out there, and that’s why these committee hearings are so important.”
Thomas hopes minds will change in Michigan after poll challengers for the August and November elections spend hours learning the processes and are sequestered in counting centers, watching what goes on.
“Now, they may see some errors. This is a heavily populated, part-time operation. Errors do happen,” he said. “But that’s not fraud.”
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