This story is republished with permission from Michigan Advance, a nonprofit news website covering state politics.
By Allison Donahue
Michigan Advance
The GOP-led state House passed a resolution Tuesday that will give the Oversight Committee power to issue subpoenas for Nov. 3 general election-related issues, as Republicans continue to maintain there were serious problems, despite court rulings to the contrary.
This came one day after the Electoral College affirmed the win for Democratic President-elect Joe Biden.
“I’ve heard from an incredible number of people who are worried about fraud and have lost faith in the free and fair elections upon which our country is built,” said Rep. Triston Cole (R-Mancelona) who introduced House Resolution 342. “Regardless of our political affiliations, we should all agree that we must do more to restore the public’s trust in our voting procedures. We can begin that process by conducting a thorough and complete investigation that gets to the bottom of these reports and delivers the answers voters deserve. The Oversight Committee needs full access to accurate information to make sure that happens.”
The resolution was approved by the House on a party-line 58-51 vote.
The courts, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and now-former U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr have not found any evidence of election fraud.
The committees already voted last month to subpoena documents from the Bureau of Elections, which did not turn up irregularities.
GOP-led House and Senate Oversight committees met in a joint meeting after the resolution was approved in the House and voted to issue subpoenas for documents and election records from Livonia City Clerk Susan Nash and Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey. Both are in Wayne County, the subject of several unfounded conspiracy theories about voter irregularities.
During the Senate Oversight Committee meeting, John Poulos, CEO and founder of Dominion Voting Systems, testified that there was no tabulator manipulation in the general election, another unfounded conspiracy that has been the center of several pro-President Trump lawsuits. Poulos testified under oath, something committees refused to do for GOP activists who made hours of allegations previously debunked in court.
GOP former state Rep. Lisa Posthumus Lyons, who is now Kent County clerk, tried to correct misinformation.
“Tabulators don’t run elections. Clerks, staff, and election workers from our communities who take an Oath to uphold the Constitution run our elections, and in Michigan we run them using paper ballots that can be re-counted and audited,” Lyons wrote in a statement Tuesday. “The spread of misinformation about this election must stop now so that we can turn our attention to the real concerns that need to be addressed to ensure integrity in our elections.”
