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June 24, 2021

About the Debunked Antrim County "Forensic Audit" Report

A hand count of paper ballots in Antrim County, Michigan, verified the accuracy of election results for the 2020 election, thereby refuting viral claims from a severely flawed report alleging that Dominion Voting Systems software used in the county was “intentionally and purposefully designed with inherent errors to create systemic fraud and influence election results.”

June 2021: Read the Michigan Senate Oversight Committee report debunking false and misleading claims about Dominion systems and Antrim County's election results | Get a DVS Report Summary

This report contributed to the ongoing malicious and widespread disinformation campaign aimed at eroding confidence in results of the 2020 presidential election. Its claims about “massive fraud” were produced by a biased, non-independent organization called Allied Security Operations Group (ASOG). The report was immediately flagged by Michigan’s chief state election official and attorney general as lacking credibility (Dec. 14, 2020) following its release.

• FACT CHECK: A Michigan Senate Oversight Committee report concluded, "Events in Antrim County sparked a significant amount of concern about the technology used to count ballots.  This concern led to much speculation, assumptions, misinformation, and in some cases, outright [lies] meant to create doubt and confusion.  The many hours of testimony before the Committee showed these claims are unjustified and unfair to the people of Antrim County and the state of Michigan.  [It] has also been unfair to people across America."
• FACT CHECK: An independent state analysis report has thoroughly debunked the flawed ASOG report and demonstrated its clear lack of “credible statistical analysis,” and a general lack of understanding regarding voting systems technology. A Michigan Secretary of State press release adds that the analysis “affirmed there was no credible evidence the Dominion system was deliberately designed to induce errors, and found the Allied Security Operations Group report contained an extraordinary number of false, inaccurate or unsubstantiated statements.” (March 26, 2021)
• FACT CHECK: The origin of the ASOG report tracks to founder Russ Ramsland, a Deep State conspiracy theorist who mistook locations in Minnesota for Michigan jurisdictions and falsely claimed in an affidavit that voter turnout in Detroit was 139.29% and turnout in North Muskegon was an eye-popping 781.97%. [In reality, turnout was 50.88% and 78.11%, respectively.]
• FACT CHECK: The State of Michigan’s December 2020 audit verified the county’s presidential election results, in which Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by nearly 3,800 votes. A core issue behind the disinformation aimed at Antrim County was confirmed to be a human error in reporting unofficial election results – which was immediately corrected by the county. (Nov. 7, 2020)
• FACT CHECK: Dominion, the State of Michigan, and the State’s independent expert have debunked claims about adjudication made by ASOG’s team, all noting that Antrim County does not perform digital adjudication of ballots (the county manually reviews paper ballots).  The state analysis adds:  The 68% system error rate claim is "meaningless." "The warning messages relate to benign instances where ballots did not feed into the scanner correctly and were ejected (“reversed”) for the voter to try again." (March 26, 2021)
• FACT CHECK: In a court filing, the Director of Michigan’s Bureau of Elections stated, "the [ASOG] report makes a series of unsupported conclusions, ascribes motives of fraud and obfuscation to processes that are easily explained as routine election procedures or error corrections, and suggests without explanation that elements of election software not used in Michigan are somehow responsible for tabulation or reporting errors that are either nonexistent or easily explained." (Dec. 13, 2020)
• FACT CHECK: Dominion Voting Systems CEO John Poulos refuted the report's flawed claims under oath in testimony before Michigan’s Senate Oversight Committee on December 15, 2020, noting: