Attorney General Dana Nessel says she expects Michigan to again be at the center of attempts to overturn Democratic election victories in November as control of Congress runs through the state.
Nessel participated in a panel Wednesday about defending the integrity of the midterms with California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows.
State and local leaders have been running tabletop exercises to prepare for a variety of possible scenarios ahead of November’s midterms.
But Nessel said federal agencies declined to participate in the exercises this year, which she said is unusual.
Nessel said local clerks will be able to contact special agents from her office and the Michigan State Police if there are concerns at polling sites on Election Day. She said her team will also have lawyers ready to spring into action.
“They’ll be all across the state ready to file something,” Nessel said. “We have briefs that we’ve prepared for virtually every set of circumstances we could think of, except the zombie apocalypse.”
Nessel said she’s concerned federal election monitors sent to some Michigan cities, including Detroit and Lansing, during the primary were there to prepare for future litigation.
Nessel said the biggest threat to elections is not their security, but misinformation and disinformation as unfounded claims of widespread voter fraud have proliferated in recent years.
Some people have started testing the system by trying to vote twice or encouraging people who can’t legally vote to cast a ballot, Nessel said.
But she said those rare cases being exposed is proof of the system working.
“I mean, yeah, technically you could say, ‘I went to CVS just to see if I could steal some NyQuil, see what would happen,’” Nessel said. “Well, yeah, you can try that, but then you’re going to get caught. You’re going to get prosecuted. So, congratulations.”
Nessel said Michigan’s decentralized election system, in which more than 1,600 local clerks administer elections, would make a conspiracy like the ones alleged by President Donald Trump in 2020 difficult to pull off.
“You elected that person, or you elected the board who chose that person,” Nessel said. “You know her. She lives down the street from you. She’s not trying to undermine the election.”
Nessel said she hopes federal agents consider that their actions have consequences before they “do something illegal at the behest of a president who is 80 years old, can only be expected to be in office another couple years,” noting state attorneys general have had success in cases where federal officials were violating court orders and “there’s a lengthy statute of limitations for any crimes that a federal agent might commit.”
“Do I think that the feds are actually going to violate court orders on behalf of a lame duck president? I hope not,” Nessel said. “I hope they wouldn't consider doing that. I hope they understand that this iteration of the government may not be around forever, and maybe whoever is in the DOJ in the future will prosecute violations of the law.”
