Michigan’s Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel filed an emergency appeal today following a Michigan judge’s ruling on Tuesday that struck down Benson’s ban on open carry of guns at polling places on Election Day. The judge says Benson did not follow proper procedure to create a new rule.
The appeal highlights state law that they say gives Secretary of State supervisory law over polling places to curb disturbances and voter intimidation. The appeal states the authority was previously upheld, citing the ban of recording devices and cameras in the polls despite prior lawsuits over First Amendment rights.
Some Michigan sheriffs had already stated that they did not intend to enforce the new rule, saying Benson does not “have the authority to make laws,” and that Michigan is an open carry state.
On Tuesday, Governor Gretchen Whitmer published an essay in The Atlantic against the president, saying that he “failed our country” by creating the divide he uses to attack Democrats and women, while failing to denounce white supremacy.
“Every time he fires up Twitter to launch another broadside against me, my family and I see a surge of vicious attacks sent our way. This is no coincidence, and the president knows it. He is sowing division and putting leaders, especially women leaders, at risk. And all because he thinks it will help his reelection,” writes Whitmer.
The complete essay can be found here.
Trump held a rally at the state’s Capitol Airport on Tuesday, where people again began a chant of “lock her up” at the mention of the governor while Trump smirked.
Trump depicted the election as a choice between a Trump boom and a Biden lockdown, but told the crowd in Michigan’s capital that they were already locked down.
Trump whined about the governor not being appreciative of the FBI’s efforts to thwart a kidnapping plot against her, and questioned how serious the plot was.
“It was our people that helped her out with her problem,” the president said. “We’ll have to see if it’s a problem, right? People are entitled to say maybe it was a problem, maybe it wasn’t.”
The Whitmer campaign immediately sent out a fundraising email that said Trump “just doubled down on his attacks against Gretchen — and we need to respond. Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous to our country and dangerous to our leaders, like Gretchen, who are doing everything they can to keep us safe during these times.”
Whitmer is a national co-chair for the Biden campaign.
Multiple sources: Detroit Free Press, MLive, Huffington Post, Detroit News, and The Hill.