That’s a wrap: Michigan election certified without protest after Trump win

• Without complaint, the Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers on Friday certified the 2024 general election 
• President-elect Donald Trump officially won the state by 80,156 votes
• Rep. Jim Haadsman, D-Battle Creek, has until Monday to decide whether to request a recount of his 61-vote loss

LANSING — President-elect Donald Trump’s 80,156-vote win over Vice President Kamala Harris in Michigan became official Friday with a unanimous vote from the Board of State Canvassers certifying the Nov. 5 election results.

At a 90-minute meeting Friday morning, no one publicly objected or protested.

It was a stark contrast from the 8 1/2-hour meeting four years ago, when the canvassers voted with one abstention to certify the 2020 presidential election. 

Then-candidate Joe Biden had won the state by a wider margin, about 154,000 votes, but a long procession of online speakers urged canvassers to reject the result, citing false claims of election fraud.

“The people who contended in 2020 that the election was not properly conducted, and was rigged, are satisfied with the election this time,” Democratic canvasser Mary Ellen Gurewitz said on Friday.

In a statement, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson noted the more than 5.7 million counted votes made it the highest turnout election in state history.

Now the clock is ticking for recounts. 

Related:

• Michigan worked to speed up election results. Here’s why it still took a while
• Michigan elections FAQ: Does new recount law bar fraud investigations
• Michigan canvassers nearly blocked 2020 votes. Could it happen again?

The deadline is usually 48 hours after certification, but it is now about 11 a.m. Monday because of the weekend, said Jonathan Brater, director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections.

Brater told the canvassers several county-level races had requested recounts, but it was unclear whether more might come in.

Among the close results certified Friday:

•  US Senate: Democrat Elissa Slotkin defeated Republican Mike Rogers by 18,961 votes statewide. The 0.42 percentage-point margin is the closest in modern times.
• 44th state House:  Republican Steve Frisbie won by 61 votes over incumbent Rep. Jim Haadsma of Battle Creek. “No decision has been made” on whether to request a recount, Haadsma’s attorney Chris Trebilcock told Bridge on  Friday.
• Michigan State University Board of Trustees race for two open seats, the difference between Democrat Rebecca Bahar-Cook and Republican Julie Maday, was a little more than 4,100 votes, about 0.04% of the vote. Republican Mike Balow finished first, securing the other seat. Maday, who had initially declared victory due to erroneous unofficial results, conceded the race Wednesday. In a Facebook post she criticized what she called Michigan’s “broken and inefficient” electoral process.

At Friday’s meeting, Brater conceded that election-night reporting of local results can lead to human error, but certified results have safeguards that make those mistakes unlikely.

In 2022, activists skeptical of the election results funded a recount of two statewide ballot proposals that passed with overwhelming support. It cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and left the result effectively unchanged.

One of those constitutional amendments, which also made early in-person voting available, clarified canvassers have a “ministerial” role and cannot unilaterally reject election results, as Trump sought in 2020. Fraud claims, officials have emphasized, need to be filed with law enforcement or the courts.

Despite the canvassers’ inability to intervene, Republican canvasser Tony Daunt said the board still has an important role.

“If you are entrusted with canvassing the results to certify them, you want to have tools at your disposal to make sure what you're certifying is correct,” Daunt said. 

“It’s important you have statewide agreement from a bipartisan board that the results are true and accurate, he added.