A counterfeit voting certificate was submitted to the U.S. Senate after Michigan’s 2020 presidential election, an official testified Tuesday during a preliminary hearing for six people facing forgery and other charges for allegedly serving as fake voters.
But that “purported” voting certificate did not match an official document signed by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and bearing the Michigan state seal, said Dan Schwager, who served as general counsel to the secretary of the Senate in 2020-2021.
“We could see that it was not an authorized voting certificate. It was fake,” Schwager testified in Lansing District Court.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has charged 15 Republicans in the case. Investigators have said the group signed a document at a meeting at Michigan’s Republican headquarters on December 14, 2020, that falsely declared they were the state’s “duly elected and qualified electors.”
The defendants have maintained that their actions were not illegal, even though Joe Biden won Michigan by nearly 155,000 votes over then-President Donald Trump, a result that was upheld by a Republican-led Senate investigation in 2021.
Fake electors in Michigan and six other battleground states sent certificates to Congress falsely declaring Trump the winner of the 2020 presidential election in their state, despite confirmed results showing he had lost. Michigan, Georgia and Nevada have sued forged voters. Republicans who served as fake electors in Wisconsin agreed to a legal settlement admitting that Biden won the election and that their efforts were part of an effort to improperly overturn the 2020 results.
Schwager said Tuesday that the fake Michigan document arrived at the U.S. Senate Postal Service on Jan. 5, 2021, and that he reviewed it a few days later.
“The one from Michigan came in a little late and was therefore added to the collection of the other fake certificates,” he said.
Schwager also said it was “not uncommon to get one or two often really crazy submissions from people claiming to be voters who are far away.”
“I think we might get one, two or three every four or eight years or something like that,” he added.
Miriam Vincent, acting director of Legal Affairs and Policy for the Office of the Federal Register, testified Tuesday that “material purporting to be a voting certificate from unofficial sources” was received by her office, which is part of the National Archives.
The return address listed the Republican Party of Michigan, Vincent said.
In December, former Michigan GOP communications director Anthony Zammit testified that he believes a lawyer for Trump’s campaign “took advantage” of some of the 15 Republicans.
Preliminary hearings do not involve a jury and it is up to the judge to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support the charges.
Six suspects are being treated together. A seventh, Kenneth Thompson, had his case postponed because his lawyer failed to show up. The remaining eight suspects will undergo preliminary interrogation at later dates.