Michigan GOP chair, others fined $58K for ‘frivolous’ election fraud suit

Michigan Republican Party chair Kristina Karamo and eight others have been sanctioned by a Wayne County judge, ordered to pay more than $58,000 over their lawsuit that alleged, without evidence, there was widespread voter fraud in Detroit days before the November 2022 election.

“Plaintiffs’ complaint was rife with speculation, an absence of facts and a lack of understanding of Michigan election statutes and Detroit absentee ballot procedures,” Third Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny wrote in the Monday order.

He ruled their lawsuit had been “devoid of legal merit” and “frivolous,” ordering the plaintiffs in the suit and their attorneys to together pay $58,459 in attorney fees and costs to the office of Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey, who was named as the defendant in the lawsuit.

Attorney David Fink, who represented the city of Detroit in the suit, said in a statement, “we appreciate Judge Kenny’s hard work addressing this frivolous lawsuit, and we are grateful that he returned from retirement to consider our motion for sanctions. When a baseless lawsuit is filed to interfere with the good work done by Detroit’s city clerk, there should be consequences.”

The case was first heard just eight days before Election Day and asked the court to discard all the absentee ballots cast in Detroit up until that point, and to require all voters in that city to either vote in person or get ballots from the clerk’s office themselves — dramatically changing the availability of absentee ballots in the city.

Kenny reiterated Monday the suit contradicted the absentee voting protections included in Michigan’s Constitution.

“Plaintiffs merely threw out the allegation of ‘corruption in Detroit’ as the reason for disregarding the Michigan Constitution in this state’s largest city,” he wrote

At a press conference with reporters after the first hearing, Karamo and her attorneys refused to say whether they had any evidence ballots were being cast illegally despite overtly claiming it had been happening in the lawsuit.

By the day before Election Day, Kenny had thrown out the suit, ruling the plaintiffs failed to produce “any shred of evidence” and what they were asking would “egregiously harm” eligible voters.

Read more: Judge ends Karamo’s ‘intolerable’ lawsuit to stop Detroit absentee ballots

At the time Karamo had been the Republican nominee vying to oversee Michigan’s elections as secretary of state, but later lost to incumbent Democrat Jocelyn Benson by more than 14 percentage points. Karamo never conceded her defeat, claiming to have no faith in the veracity of the result.

Three months later, Karamo was elected to lead the Michigan Republican Party by 58% of its delegates with a pledge to reshape the party from ground up.

Related: Conspiracies and a Holocaust meme mark the dawn of Karamo’s Michigan Republican Party

That includes attorneys Daniel Hartman, who has since been referred to as the party’s in-house lawyer, and Alexandria Taylor, who recently launched a campaign for U.S. Senate. Hartman has frequently represented election conspiracy theorists in Michigan, but none of the numerous suits he’s filed have succeeded.

In a filing trying to prevent sanctions, the attorneys said their lawsuit had been “seeking truth” and attempted to rehash their arguments, arguing procedural restrictions had prevented them from fully making their case.

Kenny had particular derision for their motion to disqualify every judge in the third circuit in one fell swoop, which he also ruled was frivolous Monday.

A spokesperson for the Michigan Republican Party contacted Tuesday was unaware of the sanctions and did not return a request for comment. The party, which had different leadership last year, had distanced itself from the lawsuit at the time.

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