As Michigan’s electors gathered in the state Capitol to vote for President-elect Joe Biden unanimously, a group of Republicans falsely claimed they were supposed to be part of the vote and tried to enter the building.
The Capitol building in Lansing, along with state House and Senate office buildings, was closed to the public on Monday due to “credible threats of violence,” but that didn’t stop a group of protesters from gathering to demonstrate against the Electoral College vote.
Video sourced from social media showed an officer with the Michigan State Police standing in a doorway and keeping the group, which reportedly consisted of about a dozen people, from entering the building or handing him what the group described as an “official sealed envelope.”
“I’m not going to get into a political debate,” the officer told one of the men, who claimed that the crowd was at the Capitol because it was comprised of “GOP electors.”
“The GOP electors, they here, they’re trying to do their constitutional duty,” one man told the police.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Michigan State Police for comment about the incident but did not immediately receive a response.
They said that they were the Republican electors there to cast their vote for president. State police declined to let them enter the building or leave votes offered in a manila envelope pic.twitter.com/rNVIwc5ZXC
— Riley Beggin (@rbeggin) December 14, 2020
Republicans who would have been electors in some battleground states if President Trump would have won over Biden held mock Electoral College voting ceremonies on Monday, according to Politico.
“We took this procedural vote to preserve any legal claims that may be presented going forward,” said the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania chairman, Bernie Comfort, in a statement. “This was in no way an effort to usurp or contest the will of the Pennsylvania voters.”
Michigan House Speaker Lee Chatfield affirmed on Monday that he has no intention of getting in the way of his state casting its 16 Electoral College votes for Biden, who won Michigan by more than 150,000 votes.
“I can’t fathom risking our norms, traditions, and institutions to pass a resolution retroactively changing the electors for Trump, simply because some think there may have been enough widespread fraud to give him the win,” Chatfield said. “That’s unprecedented for good reason. And that’s why there is not enough support in the House to cast a new slate of electors.”
“I fear we’d lose our country forever. This truly would bring mutually assured destruction for every future election in regards to the Electoral College,” he added.
Also on Monday, Michigan GOP Rep. Gary Eisen was removed from his committee assignments after he suggested protests when the state casts its Electoral College votes for Biden could turn violent.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer pointed out during the Electoral College proceedings that some 5.5 million people voted in Michigan’s election.
“This was truly a historic election. During the worst public health crisis we’ve seen in our lifetime, Michiganders everywhere made a plan to ensure that their voices were heard in November,” she said.
