Established Fact
Michigan’s statewide Risk Limiting Audit was structurally compromised: under MCL 168.871, “out-of-balance” precincts are legally ineligible for hand recounts, and this rule was used to exclude roughly 71% of Detroit absentee counting boards from meaningful post-election scrutiny. Additionally, 21 county clerks simply failed to complete the required RLA, rendering the statutory “risk limit” mathematically uncomputable and forcing state officials to concede that the RLA functioned only as an “exercise.”
Citations
Michigan Compiled Laws Section 168.871: https://legislature.mi.gov/Laws/MCL?objectName=MCL-168-871 | Michigan Legislature
Election Officials Manual Chapter 18: Recounts and Special Mail Elections: https://www.michigan.gov/sos/-/media/Project/Websites/sos/01mcalpine/Recounts-and-Special-Mail-Elections.pdf?rev=c2f24a47082a49478625b3a0a8e4a543 | Michigan Secretary of State
Audits of the November 3, 2020 General Election: https://www.michigan.gov/-/media/Project/Websites/sos/30lawens/BOE_2020_Post_Election_Audit_Report_04_21_21.pdf?rev=fa1fc123c0bc4da59bc7402daa825774 | Michigan Bureau of Elections
Michigan SOS press release, February 12, 2021, “Twenty-one clerks did not retrieve 78 ballots in their jurisdictions, meaning the sample was 78 ballots short of a complete sample. For this reason, the audit is being considered a pilot exercise.”; see also Michigan Auditor General, Bureau of Elections Performance Audit, March 4, 2022, “21 jurisdictions did not participate…limiting BOE’s ability to determine if the selected risk limit was met.”
It should be noted that the Bailey v Antrim County lawsuit was dismissed by Judge Kevin Elsenheimer on the basis that a statewide audit had been conducted per the MI SoS. By conceding that the RLA functioned only as an “exercise” undermines the assertion that a statewide audit of the 2020 election results was ever conducted thereby eliminating the premise by which Bailey v Antrim County lawsuit was dismissed.
MI Statewide Audit Deconstructed, https://electioncrimebureau.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/Michigan_Audit_Deconstructed.pdf