Election denial in Michigan — and the fight to contain it
A 63-year-old grandmother from northern Michigan might not be what you picture when you think of a great defender of democracy — but the Antrim County clerk says she’s determined to protect and restore faith in the electoral system.
Sheryl Guy has worked for the municipality for 45 years.
“I graduated from high school on a Thursday, had my interview on a Friday and started on a Monday,” she said in a recent interview. “And I’ve been here ever since.”
These days, she’s pushing back against election deniers.
“Donald Trump and his people used Antrim County as an example that the election had been stolen,” she said defiantly. “I can’t let that happen in my county.”
Michigan isn’t just a crucial battleground state, it’s also become the epicentre of election denial after a 2020 counting error was torqued into ‘proof’ of widespread voter fraud. CBC’s Nick Purdon goes there to learn more about the fallout and how election officials are fighting to restore trust in the system at the heart of American democracy.
The mistake heard around the country
Antrim County, a sparsely populated, little-known part of northern Michigan, became pivotal in the rise of election denial in the U.S. after a mistake made on election day in 2020. The Michigan department of state has reviewed what happened and concluded that human error, such as not properly preparing ballot scanners or the ballots themselves, skewed initial voting results in the county of 23,000.
Those preliminary results had U.S. President Joe Biden leading Trump by thousands of votes, even though the county had historically been a Republican stronghold.
The morning after the election, Guy remembers being in the drive-thru at her local McDonald’s when she got a message on her phone and learned of the mistake. She went right back to work until she and her team figured out the problem.
“There was an honest mistake and we owned it and we fixed it,” Guy said.
Once the ballots had been properly counted, the county went Republican by almost 4,000 votes.
But that wasn’t the end of the story.
In fact, it became the spark Donald Trump used to suggest there had been systemic election fraud across the country. He cited what happened in Antrim County in his speech on Jan. 6, 2021, before the riots in Washington and the attack on the Capitol.
“It was horrifying,” Guy said when she saw Trump’s speech on TV.
After that, her life changed. Despite being a lifelong Republican who had voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, Guy found herself the target of Trump supporters.
“I endured harassment, threats,” said Guy, who got emails and phone calls accusing her of rigging the election. “One of the messages left was that I deserved to be put in front of a firing squad.”
Denying elections — but running in one anyway
At a popular dining establishment on the shores of Torch Lake in northern Michigan, Guy addresses a small crowd gathered to support her bid for re-election as county clerk.
There’s shrimp, cheese and crackers and a cash bar.
“This election is an election on steroids,” Guy said as part of her speech that October night. “We recovered from 2020. We owned the error that happened and we’re ready to move on.”
But not everyone agrees.
Tony Smedra listens with his tattooed arms crossed. Smedra, 38, runs the Torch Lake Beer Company. He said he believes there was fraud committed in the 2020 election.
“A lot of shady stuff happened last time,” he said. “A lot of people my age, they didn’t even want to vote this time. They just think it’s crooked, so there’s no point.”
But although Smedra said he doesn’t believe elections are fair, he’s running in one: He’s hoping to get elected as clerk in northern Michigan’s Helena township on Nov. 5.
When asked how he trusts the process enough, given his lack of faith, to put his name on the ballot, Smedra smiles.
“I honestly don’t,” he said. “So that’s why I am getting involved and going to be the inside man and see what’s going on behind the scenes.”
Smedra is running as a Republican and said he was motivated to get into politics because his daughter recently turned 18 and can now vote.
“I hope that it’s not as crooked and there’s no shady stuff going on, but I will find out.”
The checks and balances are there.– Antrim County clerk Sheryl Guy, on the U.S. voting system
Though many echo Smedra’s feelings, numerous investigations into the 2020 U.S. election found the widespread fraud that the Trump campaign and many Republicans claim cost them the election did not happen.
Rep. Liz Cheney, the former chair of the House Republican Conference, stated on Feb. 23, 2021: “There were over 60 court cases where judges, including judges appointed by President Trump and other Republican presidents, looked at the evidence in many cases and said there is not widespread fraud.”
And Guy has a message for those who believe there was fraud in her county or who deny election results elsewhere in the United States.
“The checks and balances are there,” she said. “If you don’t believe it, shame on you.”
Has election denial gone mainstream in the U.S.?
Jason Cabel Roe is a longtime Republican strategist and the former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party.
From his office in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., about 40 kilometres north of Detroit, Roe is working to get a Republican to win a highly contested congressional race.
“I think there’s probably about 40 per cent of Americans that are skeptical that they can trust the integrity of our election systems today,” Roe said, an opinion backed up by some polls in the last year.
And Trump has tried to capitalize on this, Roe said.
“Part of what all Republican candidates and consultants are in some way conveying is if you think there is going to be cheating, and you want to make sure it doesn’t matter, then get out there and vote,” Roe said.
Roe said he’s meeting more people who have lost faith in the integrity of election results.
“Even in the last couple of weeks, I’ve run into people that would seem perfectly normal — suburban, college-educated parents — and the election comes up, and it’s almost like clockwork, [they say], ‘They’re just going to rig it and steal it.'”
Roe blames media consumption, in part, for the fact that Americans are politically segregated, noting how many Democrats watch MSNBC and CNN, while more Republicans watch Fox.
“I think in this country we are increasingly living amongst people that are like-minded,” he said. “And so I have run into countless people who don’t know anyone who voted for Joe Biden. So it’s impossible for them to believe that Biden won.”
Silver lining
Lisa Posthumus Lyons, the county clerk in Kent County, Mich., stands in front of a classroom of people training to be election inspectors.
“I’m so thankful to have all of you stepping in and stepping up and playing a part in this true cornerstone of our republic,” she tells the class.
Lyons said she believes the scrutiny and mistrust in U.S. elections has a silver lining: It used to be hard to get people to work elections — not any more.
“If 2020 taught me anything, it’s that, beyond casting their ballot, voters know very little about the process,” Lyons said. “And I really believe the key to trusting the process is education and participation — that’s kind of what I’ve made my mission the last four years.”
Lyons said she hopes the more people get involved in elections, the more they will learn to trust them again.
“It makes me sad when I hear so many people not believe the outcome of the election. But I also, I don’t want to dismiss folks outright,” she said. “I want them to have an opportunity to share their concern and to really meet that head on.”
Cyndi Sullivan sits at the back of the class. When she’s asked why she decided to become an election inspector, she said it’s because she’s skeptical.
“It’s important because if there is fraud in the elections — in our government — then the people have a right to know,” Sullivan said. “We have a right to know what’s going on.”
It’s comments like Sullivan’s that highlight what Lyons says is at stake on Nov. 5 beyond the country’s choice for president: Belief in the electoral system itself.
“It’s so important to have faith in the process. Otherwise, what are we doing? You can’t have a government of the people, by the people and for the people if the people don’t believe in it.”
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Published at Wed, 31 Jul 2024 21:58:04 +0000
Why Gisèle Pelicot, at the heart of France’s shocking mass rape trial, is being called a hero
WARNING: This article may affect those who have experienced sexual violence or know someone affected by it.
It’s not unusual for Gisèle Pelicot to be greeted with applause when she walks through the courthouse in the southern French city of Avignon.
In the midst of a horrifying mass rape trial against her husband and 50 other accused men, Pelicot, 72, is being called a feminist hero, inspiring thousands of marches, rallies and a push for legal reform to France’s rape law to include consent for the first time.
Dominique Pelicot, her husband, has admitted to inviting dozens of strangers over nearly 10 years to their house to rape her after he had drugged her unconscious.
Gisèle Pelicot has been touted for her bravery, not just for surviving her ordeal but for waiving her right to anonymity, and her composure in the witness box, where she stands firm that it’s the men — not her — who should be ashamed.
And now that Pelicot has taken the stand for a second time in the trial, which began on Sept. 2, her words have been shared across media and social platforms, with people online even petitioning for her to be made Time magazine’s Person of the Year or be given the Nobel Peace Prize.
Sexual assault experts and advocates say she’s changing the discourse about rape, and Pelicot herself has said she’s “determined that things change in this society.”
“I’ve decided not to be ashamed. I’ve done nothing wrong…. They are the ones who must be ashamed,” Pelicot said Wednesday.
This flips the script on the history of victim-blaming and shaming that is often seen around sexual assault survivors, said Bailey Reid, CEO of the Ottawa-based sexual violence prevention program The Spark Strategy.
“So often, survivors feel they should be ashamed of what happened to them and that they should blame themselves in some way,” Reid told CBC News.
Gisèle Pelicot, who was allegedly drugged and raped by dozens of men in a scheme orchestrated by her husband, was greeted with flowers and applause after testifying in a public trial.
“By going public and calling out the perpetrators, Gisèle Pelicot shifts the shame from the victim — where patriarchy and rape culture place the blame — to the perpetrators,” said Ummni Khan, an associate professor in the department of law and legal studies at Carleton University in Ottawa.
“Instead, she asserts her power as a survivor, as a hero, in fact, for the women in France and all over the world.”
Men who apologized ‘trying to excuse themselves’
Over the last several weeks, the court learned that Pelicot and her husband of 50 years lived in a house in Mazan, a small town in Provence. In 2020, a security agent caught Dominique Pelicot taking photos up women’s skirts in a supermarket, leading investigators to search his phone and computer.
They found thousands of photographs and videos of men appearing to rape Pelicot in their home when she seemed to be unconscious. Police investigators found communications that Dominique Pelicot sent on a messaging website commonly used by criminals, in which he invited men to sexually abuse his wife.
Dominique Pelicot admitted his guilt and alleges that the 50 men standing trial alongside him understood exactly what they were doing. The defendants range in age from 26 to 74.
“She is challenging the myths surrounding sexual assault, including the belief that one is safe at home and the idea that rapists are monstrous figures rather than neighbours and community members,” said Khan, who researches gender, sexuality and the law. “Her willingness to sit there and listen to the perpetrators try to make up excuses shows incredible courage.”
Despite video evidence against them, at least 35 of the defendants have denied the rape charges, claiming that Dominique Pelicot tricked them into believing they were taking part in a sex game or that his wife was feigning sleep. Only a few have admitted to raping Pelicot, and some have apologized — which she does not accept.
“By apologizing, they are trying to excuse themselves,” Pelicot said Wednesday.
She also testified how “unbelievably violent” it was for her that many of the accused in the trial said they thought she agreed to the rapes or was faking sleep.
“For me they are rapists, they remain rapists. Rape is rape…. Of course today I feel responsible for nothing. Today, above all, I’m a victim…. We have to progress on rape culture in society.”
Lawyer Stéphane Babonneau says Gisèle Pelicot cannot forgive the ‘cowardice’ of the 50 men accused of raping her while she was drugged unconscious by her husband. Any one of them could have warned the authorities anonymously, ‘and so for her this is also the trial of cowardice,’ he said.
Husband’s corroboration makes case unique
Tanya Couch, a co-founder of advocacy group Survivor Safety Matters and a sexual assault survivor herself, told CBC News she agrees that Pelicot is most definitely a hero and that allowing her story to be so public is an act of incredible vulnerability.
“Without her courageous and selfless act, we wouldn’t be having this insight into how these ‘normal’ men are behaving behind closed doors,” said Couch, who lives in the Greater Toronto Area.
However, she stressed, this kind of public support and rallying for Pelicot is not the experience of most survivors. Pelicot’s case has two factors that place it apart from most other sexual assault cases, she said: police evidence and her husband’s corroboration of her story.
“The baseline is that women are not believed,” Couch said.
Last year, French authorities registered 114,000 victims of sexual violence, including more than 25,000 reported rapes. But experts there say most rapes go unreported due to a lack of tangible evidence: About 80 per cent of women don’t press charges, and 80 per cent of the ones who do see their case dropped before it is investigated.
In Canada, too, the majority of sexual assaults aren’t reported to the police, according to the Department of Justice. Between 2017 and 2022, the rate of police-reported sexual assaults increased 38 per cent, notes Statistics Canada. In 2022, just 31 per cent of sexual assault cases were dealt with by having charges laid or recommended by police.
That year, 10,028 incidents of sexual assault were classified by police in Canada as having “insufficient evidence to proceed with laying or recommending a charge,” representing 30 per cent of all police-reported sexual assaults, according to a 2024 Statistics Canada report.
“The public is emboldened to support Gisèle because her husband corroborated his actions. If he had said that she consented to it, that she was playing along, like most men do when they’re charged with sexual assault, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Couch said. “It would just be a ‘he said, she said’ case again.”
Reid, with The Spark Strategy, said she believes any survivor of sexual violence is incredibly brave — whether or not they choose to tell anyone at all — and that while Pelicot’s messages challenging shame and stigma are powerful, it’s important to support and believe all survivors.
“If we all started with that simple step, we could all be feminist heroes,” she said.
For anyone who has been sexually assaulted, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services via the Ending Violence Association of Canada database.
For anyone affected by family or intimate partner violence, there is support available through crisis lines and local support services.
If you’re in immediate danger or fear for your safety or that of others around you, please call 911.
Published at Sun, 27 Oct 2024 08:00:24 +0000
