The clerk said he would count the votes manually, while Trump-aligned activist spread misinformation about voting machines.

State officials announced on Tuesday that two local election officials were removed from the oversight of the vote. This was done to prevent officials aligned with Trump from trying to subvert electoral rules.

Tom Schierkolk and David LaMere were fired after they told state officials they planned to manually count the ballots prior to sending the tally to the county canvass. This was revealed in a letter Jonathan Brater, Michigan’s elections director sent Mr. Schierkolk Monday to inform him of this decision.

Mr. Schierkolk has ties to a group of activists that have promoted several false theories about election corruption and advocated, at times hand-counting ballots. They apparently believe electronic voting machines lack security. Donald J. Trump, his allies, and others spread this idea after Trump’s defeat in 2020. They claimed, falsely that the machines changed the votes for Joseph R. Biden Jr.

1776 Coalition Sponsored Win a Gun

In his letter Mr. Brater stated that hand-counting was against the law, and could compromise the accuracy and security. Experts say that voting machines are more accurate and faster than manual counts. Mr. Brater wrote in his letter that the clerk refused to follow an order by the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office.

In an interview with The New York Times, Schierkolk called state’s action “baseless”, and said that a count by hand would be legal under the Constitution of the State.

Mr. Brater instructed that Mr. Schierkolk, and his deputy, hand over their duties as local officials to other officials “in order for the public to have confidence and trust in the integrity and safety of elections”, and that they be denied access to the voter-registration system.