LANSING, Mich. — State Sen. Dayna Polehanki, D-Livonia, said Monday she plans to sponsor a bill that would impose penalties for pressuring, coercing or intimidating election workers in Michigan to violate the law.
Polehanki's comments came after The Detroit News reported Friday that supporters of Donald Trump had urged Livonia Clerk Susan Nash to hand over hard drives and voting machine data for "analysis" in the weeks after Trump, the then Republican president, lost the 2020 presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden.
In a statement to Attorney General Dana Nessel's office earlier this year, Nash said one of the exchanges she had about the equipment left her feeling threatened. And after she refused to go along with the requests to make the hard drives and data available, the Livonia clerk told family members she "would not break the law," according to the statement.
“It seems to happen with impunity. Therefore, it continues," Polehanki said of the pressure directed at election workers. "I think it would be smart legislation."
Polehanki said she's still working on the details of the proposal. But she said some people in her district appeared to have exerted undue pressure on Nash in an attempt to get her to turn over election equipment.
There's a need for a new policy on the matter, the senator said.
Democrats will control both the state House and Senate beginning in January.
After the November 2020 election, some Trump supporters in Michigan attempted to obtain and examine voting equipment. Trump, who lost the state by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points, and others maintained unsubstantiated claims that problems with the technology influenced the outcome.
A special prosecutor is currently considering criminal charges against nine individuals who successfully got three Michigan clerks in rural areas of the state to supply tabulators, which they allegedly took to hotel rooms, broke into and examined.
In a separate situation in Livonia, former state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, a Canton Township Republican who represented the area before Polehanki, told Nash in early January 2021 he wanted "a team of cyber forensic experts" to review the hard drives of Livonia city machines used to administer the 2020 election.
In his email, Colbeck included a letter written by someone else, but with Nash's name on the bottom of it, that was addressed to Mark Meadows, Trump's chief of staff. The letter, which Colbeck said ultimately wasn't sent to Meadows, asked for "the assistance of federal resources to undertake a cyber forensics review of the technology of the machines."
Nash said she felt "threatened" after a conversation with Livonia City Councilman Scott Bahr, who told her Colbeck was upset and someone could contact Fox News to let the network know that she was "not cooperating," according to her statement to the Attorney General's office.
"Could I be the next person President Trumps (sic) mentions?" Nash asked, according to her statement.
But Bahr disagreed with Nash's account of the conversation and told The Detroit News he was trying to diffuse the situation to keep Livonia's election process from being misrepresented.
"I was only involved in this because Colbeck called me to say he was going to go to the national media if Nash didn't give him what he wanted," Bahr said in an email.
Colbeck has defended his actions, saying he was preparing his arguments to "support of 2020 election certification discussions" on Jan. 6, 2021. In a tweet on Friday in response to Polehanki's idea, Colbeck suggested there was a need for legislation to encourage election officials to "follow the law."
Asked about Polehanki's upcoming proposal, Chris Thomas, who previously served as Michigan's elections director for 36 years, said there's a need for a broader set of penalties targeting those who threaten or harass election officials.
Thomas said Michigan needs provisions on the books to provide assurance to election officials because many officials are starting to perceive their jobs are more dangerous than they previously thought.
"It would send a message to those seeking to threaten people," Thomas said. "If they ever get tracked down, they’ll be prosecuted.”
A June 2021 report by the Bipartisan Policy Center and the Brennan Center for Justice cited survey data finding that 1 in 3 election officials felt unsafe because of their job. Thomas is a fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
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