Michigan election officials face scrutiny amid falsehoods of conspiracy theorists

(CNN) — In the closely watched battleground state of Michigan, election officials are under the microscope, with isolated mistakes or missteps serving as fodder for election deniers to lay the groundwork for widespread doubt of election results.

Several incidents this week – ranging from an isolated case of an illegal ballot cast to human errors from the secretary of state’s office that have since been corrected – have shown how conspiracy theorists have been unrelenting in their attempts to suggest something far more sinister is underway.

“For those of us who run elections, it’s a stressful time anyway and we really worry about this situation and these kinds of stories spiraling out of control,” Washtenaw County clerk Lawrence Kestenbaum, a Democrat, said. “Psychologically, having people impugning the process and so forth is stressful.”

Despite extensive efforts at transparency and attempts to swiftly correct the record for the public in Michigan, the incidents have already been amplified online to suggest systemic cheating and fraud in the election, making it difficult to reel in original misleading claims.

‘Canary in the coal mine’

Although Michigan has had a smooth and strong start to its statewide early in-person voting this week, the state also faced several incidents that point to the ease with which small cases can be amplified on social media to suggest otherwise.

On Wednesday morning, confusion over the number of ballots cast in the state was sparked because of a formatting error that has since been corrected, with no extra votes counted, according to the Michigan secretary of state’s office.

Some of the confusion appears to have originated from a post on X by Matthew DePerno, one of the more high-profile election deniers in Michigan. A former GOP nominee for attorney general in Michigan, DePerno was charged last year in connection with efforts in 2020 to illegally access and tamper with voting machines in hopes of proving that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. DePerno has pleaded not guilty in the voting machines case.

DePerno’s post, which has been viewed more than six million times, said his review of Michigan’s Qualified Voter File — a voter records database that tracks ballot submissions — showed one voter ID had recorded a vote dozens of times at various addresses. DePerno added that the data in the spreadsheet showed over 160,000 excess ballots cast.

The Michigan secretary of state’s office attributed the confusion to a “formatting error” in the spreadsheet that it says has been corrected, which inadvertently appeared to show the same vote attributed to former addresses associated with an individual.

“Each of these voters only had one vote recorded for this election. This error in the data export process has been corrected and these erroneous extra lines no longer appear on the report,” the statement said.

Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump also attempted to clear up the allegations in a post on X, saying “it was a glitch in the system – these duplicates were not and WILL NOT BE COUNTED.” Her acknowledgement that this was a glitch, and not indicative of widespread fraud, backed up the explanations from Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat.

When asked about the clarifications from Trump and the secretary of state’s office, DePerno told CNN: “If you believe this is an export issue then you are a moron.”

DePerno’s doubling down despite the explanation and correction underscores the difficulty with assuaging the doubts sown by those spreading the claims on social media to allege wrongdoing.

“The explanation has a lot less reach than the initial claim … when you compare the reach of government officials, it makes it impossible for information to catch up with viral claims,” said Ben Decker, the CEO of threat intelligence group Memetica. “These are kind of the canary in the coal mine of post-Election Day disinformation narratives.”

The far-right conspiracy site The Gateway Pundit also appeared to dismiss the official explanations and referred to the incident as a “voting scandal” in a headline Thursday morning.

“Bless Lara’s heart, but this is not acceptable and likely inaccurate,” The Gateway Pundit wrote in response to her assurance the issue had been dealt with.

Rare case of noncitizen voting

At the same time that the claims by DePerno were making the rounds on social media, authorities announced that Michigan prosecutors charged a Chinese citizen with voter fraud and perjury after he allegedly cast a ballot for the 2024 election.

Sources familiar with the matter told CNN the 19-year-old Chinese man who allegedly voted is a student living in Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan. Authorities said the man isn’t a US citizen and therefore can’t vote in federal elections.

Experts say illegal voting by noncitizens is extremely rare, and when it does happen, it is usually caught quickly. The announcement by Michigan’s secretary of state and attorney general, both Democrats, and local prosecutors in Ann Arbor, emphasized the isolated nature of the case.

“Investigations in multiple states and nationwide have found no evidence of large numbers of noncitizens registering to vote. Even less common is a noncitizen actually casting a ballot. When it does happen, we take it extremely seriously,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit said in a statement.

It appears that the student’s vote can’t be nullified after the fact and will be counted, since ballots can’t be retrieved once they have gone through the tabulator. Unlike vote-by-mail, ballots cast at in-person voting locations don’t contain any identifying information about the individual voter, making it impossible to determine which one belonged to the student, county clerk Kestenbaum told CNN.

Experts said this is intended to maintain ballot secrecy and is standard election procedure. The case is still under investigation and it’s not clear which candidates the student voted for.

“An in-person ballot is placed in a tabulator or ballot box, intermingled with other ballots. This is to preserve secrecy, so you can’t go into the ballot later and confirm who a particular parson voted for,” said David Becker, a former Justice Department voting rights official and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research.

Investigations are underway to determine whether the incident may have been an accident or part of an intentional foreign plot to undermine the integrity of the US election. The Chinese man – a student at the University of Michigan – cast his ballot on Sunday and then reached out to local election officials later that day in an attempt to get the ballot back, according to a source familiar with the situation.

Benson walks back Dominion claim

Also this week, right-wing accounts on social media began circulating remarks made by Benson at a news conference on Monday during which she claimed there was a “nationwide issue” with some specialized Dominion machines that would make it more cumbersome for Michigan voters with disabilities to split their ticket and vote for candidates from different parties.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has been relentlessly sharing potential misinformation about elections on his account, promoted Benson’s comments in a post on X, asking Dominion “what’s going on” with the machines. The post, which included a video of Benson’s remarks, was viewed over 42 million times.

As conspiracy theories about Dominion’s Voting Assist Terminal (VAT) machines began spreading, the company blasted Benson, accusing her of making “false and misleading” comments about supposed problems with its accessible machines for voters with disabilities.

“The Michigan Department of State has confirmed there is no issue preventing any voters from making their preferred selections and casting their paper ballot,” the Dominion statement said.

The voting technology company said it does not have any machines in any other states that offer straight party-line voting “like the State of Michigan does,” arguing that this was not, in fact, a nationwide issue as Benson had claimed.

Benson subsequently backed off her remarks, saying through a spokesperson “Dominion has explained that the VAT programming error only affects users in Michigan.”

Mishaps and issues involving Dominion machines often catch fire on social media — because many pro-Trump figures are still promoting the lie that Dominion machines were involved in rigging the 2020 election in President Joe Biden’s favor. A controversial right-wing sheriff from Barry County, Michigan, who has also lied about Dominion’s actions in 2020, posted on X this week about a “criminal investigation” he’s leading into the company.

Despite the recent challenges, election officials in Michigan say they are confident that they are prepared to withstand efforts to undermine confidence in the results.

“We are accustomed to scrutiny – everyone thinks they are an expert on elections,” Kestenbaum said. “I don’t spend a lot of time on worst-case scenarios … you can imagine things descending into chaos somehow. I don’t believe that will happen and I think that the official, legal and bipartisan process that we have will prevail over attempts to disrupt or subvert it.”

CNN’s Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.