Ms. Bradshaw thank you very much. Back and the next person to speak for us would be laura coxe. I see you. Waiting to see if you get on muted. Please spell your first and last the floor is yours. Cox. Name is laura thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak to you this afternoon. I am asking you to delay certification. There are too many questions that need to be answered, too many numerical anomalies and credible reports of procedure irregularities. Distrust. Remove the this vote will be certified and the will of the people will be upheld but we need to ensure that there is a fair and accurate vote first. This election had its issues and every step of the process has been stacked against republicans, starting with the challenger process. Every election they find credentials for thousands of republicans to volunteer to observe and challenge the. Lection counting process this year i was honored to perform that duty and thousands showed up across the state. Electionity of Election Officials treated all challengers regardless of party with dignity and respect and let them participate meaningfully in the process. One location in one jurisdiction stood out above all others being inhospitable and hostile to republican challenges. From the moment early today, the reaction from the secretary of state, the attorney general and partners and democrats have been antagonistic, belligerent, and disrespectful. I appreciate the hard work of Election Officials but i also will not let republican challengers be disrespected and shoved out of the process. Last week, the wayne county board of canvassers noted significant problems with the election counting process across the county. When republican canvassers asked the state to take a little more time to investigate, they were treated again with hostility and intimidation. Rather than treat those threats seriously, many democrat elected officials looked to further intimidate and threaten these officials. Election after election, we have had the same issues. We certify and then forget until the next election. If folks are proud of the 71 out of balance count in our Largest Community in the state, then we have very different ideas. This is why i implore the board of canvassers to provide meaningful review of wayne county. In the future, i would ask this board to do three things first, please use your platform to ensure that all challengers and participants in the election process are treated equally regardless of their party. Second, please use your platform to end all threats and intimidation to republicans and all parties. All deserve to have an election with integrity where every legal vote is counted. Third, please demand more from the election counting process so all questions can be answered to ensure fair and accurate votes. I ask you to do that today. I will continue to stand up for republicans and demand they be respected and i will demand a meaningful review of the vote for the people of michigan. Thank you, madam chair. Thank you very much. Are there questions . From the Board Members . Thank you very much ok. You have been around for a awhile, your husband, too. You heard testimony from some of the witnesses. That we have no choice today. That we have no power to order an audit even when it appears to be in conflict with the language specifically the testimony earlier today. Do you have any comments on that . I believe we have the opportunity to request a review, a meaningful review. We need to look at the wayne county results and i think you have time and the safe harbor limit dates can make that happen and so i believe that should happen. Ms. Bradshaw any further questions . Thank you very much. I hope you have a great day. Next one, and if i mispronounce names, im going to try my best charles the attorney for john james . Hello. Can you hear us . I can. State and spell your first and last name and the floor is yours. Charles spies. I represent the john james for u. S. Senate campaign. Lets start by taking some issues off the table here and perhaps that will let us dial down the hysteria and strawman arguments. First of all, democracy is not dying and our position is not that this election should not be certified. So all the rhetoric, legal arguments and, unfortunately, even threats from Public Officials about the board having to certify are not relevant here. Those are strawmen. Our position is the board should, perhaps even must certify, but it should only do that when it is confident the results that it is certifying are accurate. By definition, and i am talking websters, certification means to atest as being true. This board has not only the ability but the obligation to do everything in your power to confirm the results you are certifying is true. The vice chairman is correct that you are limited to the review of returns, but nobody has presented Legal Authority to say you cannot conduct an audit or independent review of wayne countys canvas to determine the accuracy of those returns that you have in front of you and you are being asked to sign and attest to as being true. Im not aware of and nobody has presented any court cases limiting such authority for you in the context of an election canvas. You also have time to get this certification of accurate results right. Michigan law mca1488321 requires you to meet today for the purpose of canvassing and determining the results of the election. The law does not, however, require the statewide can this be certified in the same timeframe. 842 one expressly grants you as part of your role to determine the results of the election the power to adjourn from time to time or other necessary purposes. So as long as you complete the canvas and announce your determination no later than the 40th day after the election, you are in full compliance with the law. We are asking you to comply with the law and use the powers granted to you to do what secretary of state benson has refused to do and take up the bipartisan cry from wayne county for an audit or some sort of precertification review of the results, specifically of the out of balance precincts in detroit. As recently as seven days ago, there was bipartisan outrage about the Election Administration catastrophe i am using the lieutenant governors expression there the catastrophe in detroit. If we use the way back machine to go to august of this year, 72 of detroits precincts were out of balance and the board of canvassers was outraged and passed a unanimous bipartisan resolution requesting the States Election monitor as an investigation as well as asking secretary of state benson to appoint someone to oversee it. He vowed we cannot have a recurrence of these problems in november. Now comes the november general election and while we, the james campaign, other nonpartisan groups and republicans have presented volume us applications of problems, im going to follow the metric on whether there is a problem that needs to be audited whether there is an out of balance percentage of precincts. In august that number was 72 and democrats, as well as republicans, demanded an investigation to fix the problem. The problem wasnt fixed. The wayne county canvas showed that over 70 of av precinct in detroit were out of balance yet again. As an aside, please dont be distracted by the directors braters attempt to cover up his secretary bensons in action by changing the statistical reference for success in detroit. Hes talking about new statistics about not quite as out of balance as before and possibly recountable. Which apparently shows some improvement. But they are not relevant to a problem everyone has agreed to focus on for the past few months. Unfortunately, the wayne county canvas last week shows over 70 of a. V. Precincts in detroit were once again out of balance. As a result of this problem, the wayne county board again asked you for help, passing a resolution demanding a comprehensive audit of all unexplained precincts in wayne county. This resolution was introduced by the democrat vice chairman of the board and gained unanimous bipartisan approval. The question before you now is whether you ignore that request and simply certify something you know to be wrong or if you take the common sense approach of adjourning this meeting for the necessary purpose of calling an audit or call it a review, whatever you need to collect call it so the postcertification audit statute is not applicable, but we expect you to do something to get a grasp on what happened in wayne county so you are certain of the accuracy of what you are certifying. This can be done quickly. Georgia did a full hand recount in a week. There is no reason this cant be completed before the first of december 8 deadline to submit to michigan electors. The people you heard from today were involved in the process as implicated here, and while i respect them all and appreciate their hard work, they have vested interest in defending their actions. The review we are requesting you conduct should be overseen by independent senior statesmen, perhaps senator joe lieberman, who, upon completion will either instill confidence in wayne countys results or, if problems are identified, can certify the correct results by december 8, but also leave us with a roadmap for future reforms. Thank you for your attention. Any questions from the Board Members . Vice chair. Good afternoon. Good afternoon. Mr. Van langevelde you would agree with me that this board only has the duties and powers given to it by law. We only have powers the law provides. The law regarding certification gives us a clear duty, doesnt it . Can you clarify what duty you are referring to . Mr. Van langevelde the law says the board of canvassers says the board should canvas the returns and determine the election and that is what our job is here today, canvassing the returns that have been certified by the counties, right . Yes, mr. Vicechairman. The accuracy of those results. Mr. Van langevelde i have had a pretty good chance to look at the laws the last few days as you can imagine, and there is nothing in the law that gives me the authority and, correct me if im wrong, theres nothing in the law giving me authority to request an audit as part of the certification process, correct . Nothing expressly gives you that authority and nothing expressly says you cannot do it. That if you take the rubberstamp approach that you are not allowed to have any discretion, that makes your job meaningless. They might as well just send the paperwork to the secretary of state and have her stamp it with a stamp. I dont believe that is why you are there. I believe you and the members of this board are smart people who want to make sure what you are certifying is accurate and that is consistent with the language of the statute. Mr. Van langevelde i mean again, we only have the power of the duties given to us by law. I have reviewed the law here. It is not complicated. Its very simple. We are required to canvas the returns and determine the results. I reviewed every section. I havent found anything about an audit, nothing about authorities for us to delay certification because we are waiting for more accurate results. I found nothing about making the certification contingent on an audit. I have found nothing that gives us the authority to review complaints of fraud. I think the law is pretty clear here and this board has such limited authority. I dont see anything where we are given the authority to act as a court or prosecutorial agency. We are just a board tasked with reviewing these returns and certifying them. Am i wrong . Yes, mr. Vice chair, you are wrong. I respectfully suggest you look at 1688421 which requires you to ascertain and determine the result of an election. That is the language of the statute. You have the power mr. Van langevelde based on these returns and nothing else. I reviewed all the other sections and theres nothing that mentions an audit, nothing mentioning a review. It is to ascertain the results of an election based on these returns from the counties. Theres nothing else in the law that says we can do otherwise. Mr. Vicechairman, in order to make your argument, you have to ignore what i just read to you, the language of the statute and add some language based on the result of the returns, you added that language that is not in the statute. I suggest that you have the ability to ascertain and determine the results of the election and that is consistent with the provision giving you the right to abstain and take the time for any necessary actions to help you determine that. There would be no reason to have that provision for extra time if you were just a rubberstamp. Mr. Van langevelde again, there is nothing in the law that says we have the authority to do the things you have requested. Correct . I respectfully disagree. I just read you the section that says your job is to ascertain and determine the results of an election. There is nothing that restricts your ability to do that. Mr. Van langevelde it does determine the results of the election. Based on those returns, theres nothing else in the law. We can agree to disagree but i think the laws on my side here. Our duty is very simple and it is a duty. We have no authority to request an audit, to delay or block certification, to review inaccuracies that happened at the local level. Those are the results we certified. Our duty is to look at the results, look at the math and certify. The statute could not be more clear. I respectfully suggest if you believe those results are accurate in front of you, then your position make sense. If you, however, like the wayne county board of canvassers, and like this board just a few months ago in august, think that it is a problem to have over 70 of a. V. Precincts out of balance then those results in front of you are not necessarily accurate accurate and you have, not only the ability, but duty to look at what we are certifying is accurate. Mr. Van langevelde im going to have to respectfully disagree on that because i find no language in the law saying that all. I will agree we have the ability to adjourn, but we cannot create out of thin air an adjournment. We have to have some authority to adjourn and theres nothing here in the law that im finding where we have the authority to say we are going to delay for an audit again. Well delay to conduct a review of the elections. We do not have that authority at all. I think we may respectfully disagree again. I would refer you to 1688421 which specifically says you have the power to adjourn from time to time for necessary purposes. If you believe it is necessary, in your role as certifying the accuracy of the results for there to be additional time to look into what happened in wayne county, then the statute applies. Mr. Van langevelde we cannot create that necessity out of thin air. We have to have Legal Authority to do it. I consider the statute to be authority. Ms. Bradshaw do you have any further questions . Thank you very much, mr. Spies. Thank you. Ms. Bradshaw i just want to make sure we have city clerk janice humphrey. We will bring up detroit city clerk janice humphrey. I see you are still on mute. Hello . Ms. Bradshaw if you could state and spell your first and last name, the floor is yours. Janice winfrey, detroit city clerk. Just to let you know, i cannot be here long. I am not working. I have a medical situation i am dealing with, but i do want to allow the opportunity or have the opportunity to remind people that the Detroit Department of elections, the detroit city clerk, and the office is a nonpartisan entity. My charge is to administer the election process, ensure voters know when election day is, and ensure they know where they go and vote on election day. Doing so we have done everything to ensure our process is open, that our process is transparent, and is administered in the spirit of professionalism. To that end, during the pandemic where detroit went through great where detroit was considered a hot spot, we went through great measures to recruit and hire poll workers that were off work due to them being furloughed. We had a different level, professional level of coworkers. We extended training significantly. All of our supervisors were trained eight hours for three days, and im talking across the board as it relates to our poll workers. We allowed our poll workers to work in shifts so they would not be as tired, so they would not have to work 18, 20, 24 hours days and we implemented the epollbook to ensure poll workers dont have two copy information down but can hit the scan and the information is uploaded to ensure accuracy. We do all of this so we can eliminate as much human error as possible. But as humans, we all make mistakes. Please raise your hand if you have never made one. We all make mistakes and to that end, if our law would allow for human error, therefore being able to recount every ballot every time, upon request, we would not have to have these long deliberations to do your ministerial act of certifying the canvas of the counties. We wouldnt have this if only our laws were reflected of errors that humans make. The only way you will have purity of the processes by allowing for a recount of every canvasser upon request regardless of whether someone made a mistake or not. Thats all i wanted to say. Thank you for the opportunity and i appreciate the work you all do. Ms. Bradshaw are there questions from the Board Members . Mr. Shinkle . Mr. Shinkle we had a phone conversation a couple of weeks after the august primary. Yes, sir. Mr. Shinkle one of the topics that came up was having a republican and democrat at each poll pursuant to state law. Mr. Baxter testified earlier today that he cant find republicans to hire is what i put in my notes. He said no republicans applied. I have a list of 50 to 100 that did apply and were told, we are full. My information is contrary to mr. Baxters testimony and you are right in the middle of saying apply on the website. Did you have enough republicans apply to be poll workers . To answer your question, mr. Baxter was incorrect if he said we couldnt find any. We did have republican poll workers and we did reach out. Was it difficult . Yes. But after we got the word out, republican poll workers began to apply, apply, apply. We had a great number of them. I dont know the exact number by heart, but we had quite a few. However, we did have to turn away poll workers, regardless if it was too late when they responded and that is what happened a lot of times. The training process is extensive and quite involved and i have many because they text me or send me an email, so i have every last one of them and it was two weeks and less until election day, not enough time to properly train and hire and bring them up to work. So those poll workers go ahead, im sorry. Mr. Shinkle i was going to say, the list of people i had that applied that were republicans, you say most of them applied to late. And there were people informally asking the different accounting tables, many republicans at this table, the response was when you find one send them over. The accounting tables did not think they had any republica