About 300 absentee ballots from the 2020 election were discovered in a Michigan storage shed, according to a local news report.
The ballots were discovered in a storage unit in Genesee County—a Michigan county made up of the town of Flint and Thetford Township—through the efforts of Thetford Township Supervisor Rachel Stanke.
Stanke told The Epoch Times that she became aware of the possible existence of the ballots in 2021, at which point she said she contacted the state’s attorney general and secretary of state.
Stanke was advised of the ballots’ existence by an employee at the township clerk’s office, who had discovered them in November 2021 while cleaning out a storage unit for the clerk. Upon discovering the documents, the unnamed employee reported them to the clerk but was unsure if anything was ever reported about the discovery. At that point, she went to Stanke to see about following up on the discovery.
Upon contacting Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Stanke was put in contact with Jonathan Brater, director of elections in the state.
Stanke was told by Brater during a phone call that Thetford Township was one of 20 or so places in the state that had been audited and that everything about the election looked good, despite Stanke’s discovery of the ballots. Stanke said this response left her “frustrated” in view of the employee’s discovery.
“So I get off the phone with him,” Stanke said, “and you know, we sent a couple of emails. I was a little frustrated.”
A couple of months later, Stanke followed up with the employee who had discovered the ballots, reporting that she had been advised that there were no problems by Brater. However, Stanke offered to make a report with the Michigan State Police if the employee would agree to testify, which she did.
Later, the previous deputy clerk of the township was cleaning out the storage unit when she came across the box of documents. Stanke said she had a “hunch” that the documents were the missing ballots and contacted the Michigan State Police with the update.
A state trooper came to Stanke’s house and took the updated report.
Afterward, the state trooper spoke with the former employee who had discovered them as well as the deputy clerk, at which point the documents were finally recovered from the storage units.
“He pulled out this box of documents that happened to be the 289 ballots,” Stanke said.
The ballots were then sent to the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office for an audit. However, Stanke was only even able to learn of the findings of this audit via a Freedom of Information Act request.
By Joseph Lord
