Thread by @alanfeuer

NEW: Dems file response to Trump campaign's allegations of fraud in Detroit.
"The people of Michigan have spoken," they write.
But the GOP plaintiffs "apparently dissatisfied...filed this suit, eager to sow doubt." Claims are called "intrigue and fantasy, divorced from reality."

A hearing has been scheduled for 3 pm.
Stay tuned.

So in advance of today’s hearing in Michigan, here’s a quick primer on the suit in question. (Mind you, this is a state suit, not the similar federal suit that was filed in Michigan earlier today.)

The suit was filed by two GOP poll workers and makes broad claims of irregularities at Detroit’s convention center.
Charges include: GOP observers weren’t given access, poll workers coached voters to vote Dem, illegal ballots were snuck into the center & dead people voted.

As proof, the GOP offers an affidavit from a poll worker, Jessy Jacob, who said she saw other workers “coaching voters to vote for Joe Biden and the Democrat party.” Jacob also claims she and others were ordered to change the date on thousands of late arriving absentee ballots.

There’s also an affidavit from a GOP poll watcher, Andrew Sitto, which...sounds a bit like hearsay.
Sitto claims he heard *other* poll watchers say “vehicles with out-of-state license plates” dropped off 1000s of ballots at the center early on 11/4—and that most went to Biden.

But Sitto never backs up the claim and quickly goes on to say that of the 10s of thousands of ballots allegedly dumped in the middle of the night, he personally knows of only five or six that went for Biden.

Another GOP affidavit was from poll watcher Robert Cushman, who said that he saw many ballots being entered illegally w/ a DOB in 1900.
That claim has since been debunked by places like Politifact: politifact.com/factchecks/202…

Dem lawyers attack these claims by saying a) they are based on flimsy evidence b) the GOP can’t simply nullify the entire MI election based on them and c) the plaintiffs don’t in fact have standing but merely “a generalized grievance that a law has—allegedly—not been followed.”

At best, they say, the GOP has alleged “isolated instances of potential misconduct at a single vote tabulation location...Such paltry evidence does not come close to establishing that Biden…was wrongfully declared a winner.”
In support, the Dems filed affidavits too.

One, from poll worker David Jaffe, says there were at least 100 GOP vote watchers in Detroit. Jaffe says he saw few Dems watchers complain but that GOP observers had many complaints & their behavior was “abusive" and “clearly designed to obstruct and delay the counting of votes.”

Another Dem observer, Joseph Zimmerman, went further. He said he saw GOP observers discuss "a plan to begin challenging every single vote on the grounds of pending litigation” & then “repeatedly challenging the counting of military ballots for no reason other than...litigation.”

The Dem lawyers also challenged some of the GOP complainants.
Remember Robert Cushman from above?
The lawyers say he’s a Qanon follower who called the election a fraud on Facebook before it even started.

Later, when the hearing starts, I'll be offering periodic updates...

Even as we wait for the Michigan hearing, a group of voters in PA has filed another election suit rehashing lots of old arguments from previous PA suits and promising to prove their claims with, yes, expert reports using data analysis & "sophisticated & groundbreaking programs."

We're on in Michigan.
Judge Timothy Kelly starts by confirming w/plaintiffs' lawyer what they want: an audit of the vote in Wayne Cty and an injunction to stop results being certified until audit's done.
Lawyer has backed away from asking judge to invalidate the entire election.

Plaintiff's lawyer, David Kallman, says his affidavits aren't generalities, as his opponents have said, but specific claims about what people saw.
He's dwelling on the Larsen affidavit (see above) about being an observer & seeing ballots w/one name assigned to voters w/another.

Kallman is now producing a new affidavit from Ruth Johnson, Michigan's former Republican secretary of state, saying that in her opinion an audit of the vote should be granted. (Current SoS is a Democrat.)

David Fink, a lawyer for the defendant election officials, says it feels like "Groundhog Day" with so many suits being filed.
Fink defends the integrity of the voting process.

Fink, who reps Detroit, says the allegation that vote counters at convention center were wrong not to compare signatures b/t ballot & register is just wrong.
The signatures were compared, he says, before the ballots got to the center.
"It shows we had a clean clear open process."

Now Fink is dealing w/the 1900 birthdate conspiracy.
That date, he says, is a just placeholder when a voter's birthdate isn't known.
"We know voters aren't 120 years old."

Fink recalls that this case is the third of four cases in Michigan, all making similar claims. Then this morning, he says, yet another case was filed in federal court with nearly identical claims.
How close?
The federal case attached this state case as an exhibit, Fink says.

Fink says votes have to be certified before suits are filed. Courts aren't even supposed to get involved in elections until then, he says, "so that people's votes count."

Fink is concerned the recount/audit the plaintiffs want will cause the Dec 14 deadline for electors being counted to be missed.
Meaning: Mich wouldn't send electors & neither candidate would get 270
OR the state legislature would take power & chose its own electors despite vote.

Any delay in finishing the vote count, Fink says, "provides fuel for the rightwing fire today--maybe next year it will be a leftwing fire--for those who want to undermine our democracy."

Now up, John Devaney, a lawyer for the Michigan Dems, who tells the judge that he has limited evidence in front of him in the affidavits & would have to take "an extraordinary leap" to stop the election, harming hundreds of thousands of people.

"This is nothing more than a generalized grievance that there were flaws in the election," Devaney says of the suit.
He says the plaintiffs don't have standing to bring the case since they weren't harmed in any specific way.

The GOP lawyer, Kallman, is back saying that he wants a full audit, not a recount, because what's the point of recounting votes if, as he claims, they were fraudulently tabulated?

Judge now asks Kallman about the demonstrators both outside & inside the TCF Center yelling "Stop the Count."
Didn't that affect observers ability to watch?
Kallman says he doesn't know who did it but wasn't his clients.
Unlikely to be Democrats, the judge says.
Kallman agrees.

NEW:
Judge in Michigan announces he'll have a decision about whether to order a full audit of Wayne County votes AND an injunction to stop certification of the vote until its done by noon on FRIDAY.

With that, the hearing ends. Out.