Lawsuit Dismissed Despite Court-Acknowledged Irregularities in Bailey v. Antrim County (MI)

Each successive dismissal of Bailey v. Antrim County was publicly characterized by Michigan’s Secretary of State and Attorney General as an affirmative factual clearance of the 2020 election results — a characterization the underlying judicial record does not support. Upon the trial court’s May 18, 2021 dismissal, Secretary of State Benson stated that the ruling “affirms that despite intense scrutiny, and an unprecedented misinformation campaign, the 2020 election was fair and secure, and the results accurately reflect the will of the voters,” characterizing the case as “the last of the lawsuits attempting to undermine democracy in furtherance of the Big Lie.” Attorney General Nessel simultaneously declared the ruling “should be the nail in the coffin for any remaining conspiracy theories surrounding the outcome of the Nov. 3 general election.” These statements were issued on the same day that Judge Elsenheimer — in the oral opinion those statements purported to characterize — had expressly stated he was “not saying that there were no problems in the way that Antrim County conducted its November 2020 elections,” that the motion was “not a test of the facts,” and that he lacked “the facts to make that determination” as to whether the election data had been corrupted.

The pattern was repeated at each subsequent appellate stage. Upon the Michigan Court of Appeals’ April 2022 affirmance — which reversed the trial court’s mootness rationale and ruled instead on pleading sufficiency — Benson stated the ruling “once again affirms not only the integrity and accuracy of the 2020 election results, but that those claiming otherwise will not be able to use our legal system as a vehicle for furthering their misinformation and conspiracy theories.” Upon the Michigan Supreme Court’s December 2022 denial of leave, Nessel characterized the order as “the final word in this case on the legitimacy and accuracy of our elections,” stating that “not a single member of the Court believed the claims made by the Plaintiff or his counsel were worthy of consideration.” The Michigan Supreme Court’s order did not address the merits of the underlying factual claims; it declined review on the ground that the court was “not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed.”
Media coverage amplified the same characterization. The Detroit Free Press headlined its coverage of the May 2021 dismissal “Judge dismisses Antrim County election fraud lawsuit” and reported there was “no evidence of widespread fraud in the Nov. 3 election,” without noting Elsenheimer’s explicit on-the-record statement that the ruling was not a factual finding. Bridge Michigan similarly reported the dismissal as “yet another blow to ongoing conspiracies,” quoting only the “no reason to do it twice” language while omitting Elsenheimer’s concurrent statements that he was not ruling on the facts and could not determine whether the election data had been corrupted.