No, Michigan hasn’t requested a full forensic audit of election results

Six months after the 2020 presidential election, an audit of the election results in Maricopa County, Ariz., is underway at the behest of Republicans in the state’s Senate. But such an audit hasn’t been ordered in Michigan, contrary to claims spreading on social media. 

"Michigan has requested a full forensic audit," one post said. 

It was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)

We reached out to the Michigan secretary of state’s office to ask about the post. A spokesperson for the agency told us that it’s "misinformation." 

"No new audits are planned," media relations director Tracy Wimmer said in an email. "We conducted more than 250 around the state, and those were completed months ago." 

Wimmer pointed us to a press release posted on the secretary of state website announcing that all of the audits "confirmed the integrity and accuracy of the 2020 general election." 

There are ongoing efforts to challenge the election results in Michigan, but they’re centered in Antrim County, Mich., which the Traverse City Record-Eagle reported is home to one of the last such active lawsuits in the country.  

A circuit court judge heard arguments in the case on May 10 but has not yet decided on a motion by the county and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to dismiss the lawsuit,. 

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stated on November 3, 2020 in a Facebook post

Says Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said, “I will not certify the vote in my state for Donald Trump, no matter the outcome.”

But the judge did grant a motion by the county and Benson to quash the plaintiffs’ subpoenas to conduct a forensic review of tabulators, election equipment and ballots used in Antrim County townships.

A human error in unofficial election night results briefly showed Joe Biden winning Antrim County, a GOP stronghold. That fueled an unfounded conspiracy theory that Dominion Voting Systems tabulators switched votes from Donald Trump to President Joe Biden. A hand recount of the ballots affirmed that Trump won that county. 

Cyber Ninjas, the company the Senate in Arizona hired to lead the audit there, is listed in court documents as an expert witness for the plaintiff in the Antrim County lawsuit. Among the documents filed in support of the lawsuit is an inaccurate report about the tabulators and an analysis that falsely claims an algorithm was used to manipulate election results there. 

In December, the judge in this case allowed the plaintiff to have a third party conduct a forensic examination of the county’s voting equipment. A motion by an Antrim County commissioner to hire a third party to conduct a forensic audit of the county’s election results was tabled until a June meeting.

We rate this post False.