2020 election upheaval continues to strain Antrim County

Nov. 6—TRAVERSE CITY — A federal magistrate judge recommended dismissing a civil lawsuit filed against the Jan. 6 Committee by a Washington, D.C., lobbyist, who in November 2020 visited Antrim County by private jet as part of a team of political operatives seeking local election data.

The phone records of Katherine Friess, of Arlington, Va., and Vail, Colo., were previously subpoenaed by the U.S. House Select Committee to investigate the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, court records show.

Friess, listed in 13th Circuit Court documents as an expert witness in a since-dismissed civil suit accusing Antrim County of voter fraud, sued the Select Committee, referencing her work as a staff attorney for former President Donald Trump.

The Select Committee sought Friess' phone, text, private message and other communication records, sent or received between Nov. 1, 2020 and Jan. 31, 2021, a timeframe which includes dates Friess traveled to Antrim County.

Magistrate Judge Kristen L. Mix on Oct. 26 recommended a dismissal motion filed July 11 by attorneys representing the Select Committee be granted, which could clear the way for the committee to access Friess' phone records.

Judge Mix said she was not convinced the information sought by the Select Committee could not be used "in the legislative sphere," and recommended dismissal based on lack of subject matter jurisdiction, court records show.

This latest filing in a Colorado federal court 1,300 miles from northern Michigan, have some local officials reflecting on how repeatedly-debunked fraud accusations leveled at the rural and overwhelmingly conservative county continue to strain local resources.

"This whole thing has just morphed into a lot of extra work and extra staff time and extra money," Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy said Friday.

Guy said the county has so far spent an estimated $90,000 defending against an election-related lawsuit filed by a Central Lake man, Bill Bailey, and dismissed last year by 13th Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer.

On Oct. 20, Antrim County Board of Commissioners approved spending $21,250 to purchase a computer and five tabulators from Election Source, a voting equipment company, after the county previously rented the machines for elections held in 2021 and May and August of this year.

Guy said the county's previous election equipment is still considered evidence in the dismissed lawsuit, as Bailey's attorney, Matthew DePerno, has sought leave to appeal with Michigan's Supreme Court.

DePerno is the Republican-nominated candidate for state attorney general, running against Democrat incumbent Dana Nessel.

"Not knowing if the Supreme Court is going to hear the case, we could have been doing this for another year," Guy said of ongoing rental costs.

The county spent $3,000 in voting equipment rental fees for the May and August elections in 2021 and the May election this year, for a total of $9,000, and spent $10,500 for the Aug. 2, 2022 primary election, Guy said.

County staff say they also have fielded an unrelenting flood of Freedom of Information Act requests, from a dizzying variety of people seeking election and investigatory information.

* For example, in March of last year, a resident of Hartland, Mich., sought an audit of "software installations for all devices," with lists of who installed the software, when it was installed and contact information for any troubleshooters the county might call upon for advice or assistance.

* In late January, a staff reporter for New York City-based ProPublica and a correspondent for Frontline, a PBS news program, sought a list of those who'd visited the county clerk's office between Nov. 26, 2020, and Dec. 7, 2020 — the Record-Eagle reported the list earlier that month.

* In March, an attorney with Jackson Walker, LLP, an Austin, Texas, law firm, filed a 117-page request seeking contracts, emails, bid proposals, text messages, invoices and other communications between the county and Dominion Voting Systems, Inc.

* In June, a New Jersey group, Voter Psychology, filed a request seeking to inspect all voted ballots from the 2020 general election and the right to photograph ballots.

Joan Shanahan, who handles records requests for the sheriff's office, said this year has been particularly active, and requests to that office may surpass the 200 or so she received in 2021.

Antrim County has been the subject of repeated and false claims about fraud in the 2020 presidential election, following acknowledged mistakes by Guy and staff who work in her office. In November 2020, Guy acknowledged her office did not properly update Dominion Voting Systems software to accommodate ballot changes in some precincts prior to the election.

"It's so frequent, many of us have grown numb," Guy said of the way those she called "election deniers" sought to use the county to further their debunked claims.

A report, "Exhausting and Dangerous: The Dire Problem of Election Misinformation and Disinformation," released in August by a U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Reform, references the impact of lies about U.S. elections in Michigan and other states.

"The mounting pressures facing election workers and administrators are compounded by a vicious cycle of misinformation intended to reduce public faith in our election system," the report stated.

Attorneys with the Select Committee did not respond to a request seeking comment.

Friess, who also did not respond to a request for comment submitted to her attorney, Raymond A. Mansolillo, of Boston, has 14 days to respond to Judge Mix's dismissal recommendation.