Journalist Tim Alberta Digs Into Michigan GOP Attempts to Undermine Election

President-elect Joe Biden won Michigan’s 16 Electoral College votes by more than 150,000 votes. That’s a fact, which has held up despite an outpouring of Republican conspiracy theories related to widespread fraud. 

This week in Lansing could be equated to a three-ring circus in the form of legislative hearings in Lansing which featured President Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani as the ring leader. Meanwhile, Republican Party leaders including State Party Chair Laura Cox continue to share baseless claims of fraud about an election that, by all legitimate accounts, was one of the smoothest ever seen in Michigan.

Listen: Tim Alberta of Politico pulls back the curtain on what went on behind-the-scenes during and after the election. 

Guest:

Tim Alberta is the Chief Political Correspondent for Politico Magazine. Last week, after the Board of State Canvassers certified Michigan’s election results, Alberta wrote an in-depth recounting of Republican attempts to cast doubt on the election and our entire democratic system. He talks with Henderson about the piece and the fallout that has come in the days since. “The most important point at the outset is that (there were) a number of battleground states where both parties and nominees had invested a lot of money that were very close. Michigan was not one of those states,” Alberta points out.

As far as why the state’s elections process devolved so rapidly following November 3, Alberta says two of the big reasons were “naked political ambition and the fact that the Michigan legislature refused to allow for the pre-processing of absentee ballots.” Alberta chalks the latter issue up to Michigan GOP legislators not wanting “to be seen as soft… (so) they played politics with something that is not political,” he says.