The ACLU of Michigan says it’s reached an agreement to drop a lawsuit against a Kalamazoo County election official.
The organization filed the lawsuit after county canvasser Robert Froman told the Detroit News that he believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen. The News reported Froman then said he would refuse to certify the results of this year’s election if he believed the ballots were invalid.
(A multitude of lawsuits has failed to produce evidence of widespread fraud or a stolen election.)
But the ACLU of Michigan says determining the validity of ballots is not the job of a county canvasser.
“What this case does is make very clear that there is no legal defense available to a member of a board of canvassers who refuses to do their job by certifying the vote based entirely on the returns,” said Phil Mayor, senior attorney at the ACLU of Michigan.
After the ACLU filed its lawsuit, Robert Froman agreed to sign an affidavit saying he would certify the results based solely on the election returns from the precincts.
Reached by phone Tuesday, Froman said that was always his intention.
“I just want this done with,” Froman said of the lawsuit. “It never should have started.”
In its lawsuit, the ACLU acknowledged that Froman claimed he never told the Detroit News he wouldn’t certify the 2024 result. But the News stood by its reporting and Froman didn’t ask for a correction.
Mayor said withdrawing the lawsuit was contingent on Froman doing as he says. Mayor added that the job of a board of canvassers is a clerical job, and that the job is simply to count the ballot returns from the precincts. He said anyone who refuses to do that job could face legal consequences, including attorney’s fees and damages.
“We have, indeed, both as a state and a nation, found ourselves in a situation where the simple act of certifying a vote, which is an act of simple math, has become politicized.”
Mayor said if any candidate believes votes were tampered with can pursue their claims in court, but it’s not the job of a county board of canvassers to hear those claims.
