If you’re involved with the grassroots in Michigan, you’ll know that Senator Edward McBroom is not well liked in the conservative movement. Senator McBroom represents the 38th district in Michigan. He’s being called a RINO (Republican In Name Only) by many conservatives and Trump supporters across the country. This came after he explained in a Report on the November 2020 election in Michigan, that there was no evidence of fraud in the last election.
McBroom said he expected the pushback. He said in an article on Bridge Michigan:
“I’m very content milking cows the rest of my life, and raising these kids and living here.”
The election report was written by members of the Senate Oversight Committee. It included Senator Edward McBroom, the Chair, Senator Lana Theis – Majority Vice Chair Senator, Jeff Irwin – Minority Vice Chair, and Senator John Bizon. The report made some recommendations after concluding their investigation. Here’s what they recommend:
§ Place in statute the rights and duties of challengers and poll watchers, requiring they be uniformly trained and held accountable.
§ Ensuring combined AVCBs can have more than one challenger per party, with the ability to replace challengers who exit the AVCB location after the sequester is lifted.
§ Allow for bipartisan election inspectors for all audits and require the process be open to the public.
§ Prohibit the unsolicited mailing of absentee voter ballot applications from the secretary of state to limit the potential for non-Michigan residents voting in elections.
§ Establish signature verification requirements via the administrative rules process or statute in order to provide clarity and uniformity to election workers on the proper way to ensure signatures match.
§ Require video security on all drop boxes and require all drop boxes be emptied and secured immediately or earlier than 8 p.m. on Election Day to help expedite the processing and tabulation of ballots.
§ In order to ensure more accurate voter rolls, allow county clerks greater authority when removing deceased individuals from the Qualified Voter File.
§ Allow for the continued pre-processing of absentee ballots the day before Election Day, so long as stringent security measures are kept in place. Pre-processing must occur on the site of tabulation.
§ Consider allowing tabulation, which is more secure, to begin in the week preceding Election Day as long as results may not be released until polls are closed on the completion of Election Day.
§ Require that best practices for maintaining a balanced precinct on Election Day be part of the necessary training for all precinct workers. Establish a public, published record of all clerks who fail to provide the appropriate training or continuing education to themselves or their employees.
§ Reform the canvassing processes by requiring canvassers be present during the canvass activities, expanding certain county boards where population requires it, and provide for additional time for the process to be completed.
After making these recommendations, they concluded this:
“Our clear finding is that citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan. The Committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain. We also conclude citizens should demand reasonable updates and reforms to close real vulnerabilities and unlawful activities that caused much of the doubt and questionability to flourish and could, if unchecked, be responsible for serious and disastrous fraud or confusion in the future.”
So let me get this straight. They made all these recommendations for future elections, but none of those were enough to conduct a forensic audit? If they weren’t real issues, why are they recommending changes in future elections? Who are they to decide what could’ve made enough of a difference to change the election? Why didn’t they allow the audits in other states to conclude before releasing the report?
McBroom said on June 16th, just a week before the election report was released,
“We hear a lot about how there was only this little bit of fraud and therefore nothing else is needed. But just because you can say we caught this amount of fraud isn’t somehow compelling proof that there wasn’t more that wasn’t caught. That’s really a mischaracterization and a bit of a red herring.”
Slate does a good job describing this dichotomy,
“To say that all the evidence of your monthslong investigation yielded nothing and then to suggest there might still be more fraud that wasn’t caught is like asserting a brick wall is in great condition after careful analysis, and then insisting on shoring it up anyway just in case. It’s actually more nefarious than that, because it uses one of the central reasons the Republicans’ voter fraud concerns are so salient with their base: It’s extremely hard to prove a negative. McBroom took the extraordinary step to spend months carefully investigating this claim. The real issue is that even he isn’t satisfied by his own results.”
McBroom and the other members of the oversight committee also called for the Attorney General, Dana Nessel, to investigate “those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.”
Anyone familiar with the situation knows who McBroom is talking about. The only person mentioned more than a few times in the report is Matt Deperno, and he was heavily involved in the Antrim County case. He was mentioned 8 times in the report. Patrick Colbeck was mentioned twice, and Dr. Frank mentioned three times in the report. Mellissa Carone was not mentioned in the report but she’s another leading voice in the election integrity movement. Many have speculated that she would be another who would be investigated.
The constitution guarantees the right to audit an election. We have a right to question the integrity of the elections, and have a right to a full forensic audit to make sure the election was fair and the outcome was proper.
Article 2 Section 4 from the Michigan Constitution states:
(1) Every citizen of the United States who is an elector qualified to vote in Michigan shall have the following rights:
(h) The right to have the results of statewide elections audited, in such a manner as prescribed by law, to ensure the accuracy and integrity of elections.
The Senators swore an oath to the Constitution. They are violating their oath by calling for the Attorney General to investigate those who are questioning the election, which is a right guaranteed by the Michigan Constitution.
Does Senator McBroom Have a Conflict of Interest?
This isn’t the first time that Matt Deperno and Senator McBroom have interacted. They have a prior legal adversarial relationship that was not disclosed by McBroom in the report. Many are saying that this represents a conflict of interest, and McBroom should have recused himself from the investigation.
Back in 2016, Todd Courser sued the Michigan House of Representatives, Kevin Cotter (Speaker of the House), Tim Bowlin (Business Director), Brock Swartzle (Chief of Staff and General Counsel), Norm Saari (Chief of Staff), Edward McBroom, and Hassan Beydoun in their official and individual capacities. Courser appealed the district court decision to the 6th Circuit court and they affirmed the decision made by the district court. The courts concluded that Courser did not have the evidence to prove his claims. The attorney representing Todd Courser, was Matt Deperno, who was mentioned 8 times in McBroom’s election report.
Are we expected to believe that Senator McBroom just forgot about this case that was resolved October 6th of 2020?
Why didn’t McBroom bring up the fact that he already had battled Matt Deperno in court? There seems to be a conflict of interest there. McBroom should’ve recused himself based on the fact that he and Matt Deperno had a prior legal relationship. There’s reason to suspect there is some sort of personal vendetta that McBroom has against Matt Deperno. When you get sued not only in your official compacity, but also personally, you don’t forget that and the people who were involved.
The election report also mentions Patrick Colbeck, a former Michigan State Senator who ran for Governor in 2018. He’s a former aerospace engineer and has spent thousands of hours investigating the 2020 election.
Patrick Colbeck breaks down the entire election report on his website, Letsfixstuff.org. Colbeck has been one of the leading voices fighting for a forensic audit. He lays out in his article the lies that were told by the Senate Oversight Committee and response to each point that they made in the report. Make sure to go and read that here.
Colbeck shares a letter he received from Senator Ed McBroom. In that letter, McBroom states,
“My friend, I am desperately concerned that you are ignoring truth. Certainly, your willingness to persist with failed arguments and to associate with those who are known liars must, at the least, strike you as dangerous to all who you would seek to convince of your commitment to truth. While it is not wrong to seek for the real truth when one issue has been debased, you seem to hold on to what is no longer tenable while incorporating new speculation and convoluted hypothesis- this does not add to credibility. Finally, you tear down all others, many of whom are simply not yet convinced, as being less honest, less patriotic, or less intelligent than yourself- these are not winsome or wholesome positions and are an unfair passing of judgement.”
Who do you think McBroom is referring to when he says Colbeck is associating himself with “known liars”? Could he be referring to Matt Deperno, and the lawsuit that they were both involved in? We can only speculate.
Here’s a Facebook post from June 11th, 2021 from Patrick Colbeck. You can hear more of the inside baseball in this post.
All Patrick Colbeck is asking for is a forensic audit of the 2020 election. He has a right to question the election, and he’s not the only one. Most republicans believe the election was stolen.
From MSN.com,
“A majority of Republicans, 56%, say they believe that the 2020 election was the result of illegal voting or election rigging, per an Ipsos/Reuters poll released last week, with about 6 in 10 agreeing with the statement that “the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump.”
McBroom is trying to weaponize the AG against people who he doesn’t like and/or those who believe the election was stolen. He didn’t provide any footnotes in his report, but expects us all to feel the same way he does, and we’re not allowed to say anything on the contrary. On top of that, the report does not state with proof that Matt Deperno, Patrick Colbeck, Dr. Frank, or anyone else, did this for personal gain.
This is what Donald Trump had to say about the report and Ed McBroom.
Did Deperno, Colbeck, Carone or others actually gain anything personally?
Many of the people mentioned in the report, or who were implicated, have lost almost everything in this fight. Deperno spent $1.2 million dollars in the Antrim County case. He received over $300,000 in donations, but that doesn’t come close to covering the case. Colbeck turned down a contract to make $50,000/ month so that he could dedicate his time to this crucial issue. Carone lost her job and found it almost impossible to find a new job.
They all have been attacked constantly by the media and have had their reputations destroyed. They’ve been threatened with lawsuits. They’ve had their families members threatened with violence. It doesn’t sound like they’re gaining much of anything. They could’ve went off and spent their time on other things, instead they chose to expose what they believe is election fraud because they know how important it is.
Senator McBroom should’ve recused himself from this investigation.
He clearly has a personal vendetta with Matt Deperno and has even gone as far as to ask the Attorney General to investigate him. The AG took him up on his offer as you can see in this article. Why would a leader in the Republican Party call for the corrupt democrat Attorney General to investigate people just for questioning the last election?
McBroom is a RINO. There is no doubt about it. He doesn’t want a full forensic audit because he’s scared of the results. He ignored thousands of affidavits. He ignored thousands of citizens calling for a forensic audit. He weaponized the Attorney General. He may or may not have been told to handle it this way by the people who control him. He doesn’t even seem to care that his constituents are upset with his report.
Who Funds Edward McBroom?
You can see his campaign finance records here. He received $682,909 in his 2018 campaign. You can see all his campaign contributions here. Most of that came from the Michigan Senate Republican Campaign Committee who gave him $471,261 in his 2018 campaign.
I suspect he’s got to answer to someone with that amount of money coming in. He doesn’t want to fully investigate the fraud in the last election and just expects us to forget about it and move on, and try to do better in future elections. We cannot move on without fully investigating the fraud by doing a forensic audit.
Did McBroom get a favor from Attorney General Dana Nessel? We put out a FOIA request and got flat out lied to.
On December 15th, 2020, an article from Upper Michigan Source title “Upper Michigan Dairy Farmers Caught Up in Dean Foods Bankruptcy” stated,
“The issue was brought to the attention of Attorney General Dana Nessel last week by State Sen. Ed McBroom (R-Waucedah Township) who represents a few dairy farmers who direct-shipped milk to a Dean Foods plant in Marquette and may be affected. These farms are not represented by either the Michigan Milk Producers Association or the Dairy Farmers of America co-ops. A dairy inspector from MDARD is personally reaching out to these farmers to provide them with information on how to respond to the Dean notice.
If we do not fix the last election, we will never have a fair election again.
Senator Edward McBroom needs to resign, or be recalled for violating the Constitution, concealing his relationship with Deperno, weaponizing the AG, and not representing his constituents desire for a full forensic audit. It’s his job to investigate the fraud, not the citizens’. His attempt to smear anyone associated with the election integrity movement only shows his true colors. We must vote out, or recall, members of our legislature like McBroom who do not truly represent us.
Written By: Adam Boyd
7/24/2021