As The Associated Press was calling the election for Joe Biden on Saturday, Michigan Republicans made it clear they had neither conceded the state's electoral votes nor the nail-bitingly close Senate race.
Both Republican National Chairman Ronna McDaniel and GOP Senate candidate John James separately called for a full recount of the results.
The AP declared Biden the winner Thursday of Michigan's 16 electoral votes by a razor-thin 50.6% to 47.9% of the vote (or 46,123 out of more than 5 million cast). AP also called Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., the victor over James by 84,315 votes (or 49.8% to 48.3%).
Erroneous results from voting totals in traditionally Republican Antrim County that had to be corrected have fueled Republican calls for a complete recount in the Wolverine State. After shocked officials saw the initial count showing Democrat Biden beating Trump by 3,000 votes, they ran a check on the vote-counting device and discovered a malfunction in its scanner mechanism.
The ballots were then hand-counted and the results showed Trump leading Biden by 2,600 votes, or 56% to 42%.
Based on the glitch in Antrim County, McDaniel, herself a Michigander, has called for a statewide recount and noted the same software that was used in Antrim was used to count ballots in dozens of other counties statewide.
(The machines manufactured by Dominion Voting Systems, which were used by Antrim County, are used by most counties in Michigan. But the specific software that was used for counting comes from another company known as Election Source, according to a spokesman from the state agency overseeing elections).
Most Republican operatives in Michigan clearly favor the recount favored by McDaniel and James.
"Whatever our candidates wish to do is what I support," Rocky Raczkowski, Republican chairman of Oakland County, told Newsmax, citing the glitch in Antrim and reports of delayed counting and intimidation of Republican poll watchers in neighboring Wayne County (Detroit).
"When Florida can count 22 million voters in 10 hours and California can do the same with 40 million voters, it becomes a complete and utter joke when the city of Detroit needs days to count its votes," Raczkowski said.
Newsmax noted, when Republican John Engler unseated Democrat Gov. James Blanchard in 1990 by 14,000 votes and Republican Mike Cox was elected attorney general by less than 6000 votes (against present Sen. Peters), both Democrats lost by less than Trump or James and neither called for a recount.
"We're living in a different time," Raczkowski told us. "People are more on edge and there are more availabilities to cheat in and steal elections."
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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