Michigan Senate Majority Leader Mike Shirkey said dead people were able to vote in the presidential election, but the Michigan State Department is calling that claim false.
Shirkey said there was too much confusion at the polls in November with so many absentee ballots, adding that the state’s election was “a little too loose.”
“Too many dead people voted, and there was too much confusion at absentee counting boards, which is going to be the new reality,” Shirkey said Tuesday.
The state needs “higher levels of training for those who are poll workers, poll watchers, poll challengers” to “keep the tension down” at the polls, he continued.
Michigan Department of State spokesperson Jake Rollow said Shirkey “continues to spread lies to voters and in doing so he threatens our democracy.”
“He’s admitted he should have done what we asked more than a year ago when we proposed legislation to allow sufficient time before Election Day to process absentee ballots, and he’s well aware there is no widespread evidence of wrongdoing, including ‘dead people voting,'” Rollow added, according to MLive.
The Washington Examiner reached out to Shirkey’s office and the Michigan Republican Party for further comment but did not immediately hear back.
Shirkey made headlines after video was released in which he called the Jan. 6 Capitol riot a “hoax.”
“That wasn’t Trump people,” he said. “That was all arranged by somebody that was funding it all.”
Shirkey has since apologized for the remarks.
“President Trump could and should have acted sooner and more forcibly even to call off the attack, but he did not cause the attack,” Shirkey said during the Tuesday interview. “That’s the narrative I was referring to when I said ‘hoax.'”
