I don’t hate anyone...but man, I hate Republicans.
On Wednesday, The Root reported that two Republicans on the Wayne County Board of Canvassers in Michigan—Monica Palmer and William Hartmann—tried their best to stall the certifying of election results based on concerns about unbalanced precinct numbers where the number of votes recorded in poll books didn’t match the number of tabulated votes—or at least they claimed that was the reason.
At one point Palmer, the Republican chair of the canvassing board, indicated that she would be OK with certifying the votes in Wayne County if the majority Black city of Detroit was excluded, despite the fact that other non-predominantly Black areas also had unbalanced precincts. That got the GOP board members dragged and accused of racism during the Tuesday meeting, so after negotiating an audit of Wayne County ballots, they finally agreed to stop playing around with democracy and certified the damn votes.
So that’s it, right? We can put this embarrassing political ploy behind us and congratulate President-elect Joe Biden on his win in Michigan and call it a day, correct?
Oh, wait: I forgot that Republicans are spineless, bitch-ass-ness-infused cowards, so hours after Trump falsely claimed on Twitter that Michigan “cannot certify the election”—even though the state already had certified the results and Trump’s tweet was immediately flagged—the GOP board members conveniently moved to rescind their pro-certification votes.
Have I explained yet that I hate Republicans?
According to Newsweek, 24 hours after Palmer and Hartmann agreed to join their Democratic counterparts in certifying the Wayne County votes, they released affidavits seeking to rescind their vote.
In one affidavit, Hartmann claimed that they were “berated and ridiculed by members of the public and other Board members.” Honestly, it’s only fitting that members of the party that claims America is turning into a snowflake country, are now complaining that Democrat playground bullies called them fat and beat them up for their lunch money. Hartmann also claimed that there was nothing “racially motivated” about the attempt to exclude Detroit and only Detroit from having its votes certified. (We can talk all day about how impact is more important than intent when it comes to racism, and the fact that disenfranchising mostly Black voters is, in and of itself, racist, but white people never want to hear that shit and the Republican party is full of the absolute worst white people.)
Meanwhile, Palmer claims she wants to rescind her vote because Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson—who released a statement Tuesday explaining that it was “common for some precincts in Michigan and across the country to be out of balance by a small number of votes, especially when turnout is high”— won’t conduct the audit that their earlier concession was based on.
From Newsweek:
Palmer’s affidavit, signed at 9:33 p.m., claims that Benson has not promised to conduct an audit of the votes to clear up any potential errors. “Her comments disputed the representations made by Vice-Chair Kinloch on which I relied,” she wrote. A screenshot of Palmer’s affidavit was shared to Twitter by USA Today reporter Donovan Slack.
“As a result of these facts, I rescind my prior vote to certify Wayne County election,” Palmer said. “I fully believe the Wayne County vote should not be certified.”
According to Yahoo News, Vice Chairman Jonathan Kinloch (D) called bullshit on Palmer and Hartmann’s bid to rescind their votes saying that the deadline for certification is up, that Wayne County’s certification has already been signed and that the “vote was binding.”
According to the Washington Post, Palmer denied that their decision to try to rescind their votes was based on the incessant whining of the commander-in-oh-my-God-I-wish-he-would-just-fucking-leave. She did, however, admit that she received a call from Trump after the vote.
“I did receive a call from President Trump, late Tuesday evening, after the meeting,” she said. “He was checking in to make sure I was safe after hearing the threats and doxing that had occurred.”
Here’s the kicker in all of this: In that interview, she acknowledged that, because Biden won in Michigan by damn near 150,000 votes, their little fight to deny the certifying of Wayne County votes would have no effect on the end results of the election.
“We were not delaying the inevitable,” Palmer told the Post. “We always knew that the margin of victory was such that it was not going to change the result.”
SO THEN WHY THE FUCK…
*sigh*
I hate them so much.