Lynchburg Reporter

A Liberty University School of Law professor was concerned about the postmarking of mail-in and absentee ballots before the election. Now that Nov. 3 has come and gone, the issue is at the core of allegations of improper voting in Detroit.

As previously reported, professor Phillip Kline, director of the Amistad Project at the Thomas More Society, which advocates for civil liberties, initiated multiple election-themed lawsuits in federal courts nationwide. 

“We believe that if a states’ law says a ballot needs to be received by the time the polls closed on Election Day, then it shouldn't take an extra three, seven or 10 days,” said Tim Griffin, Thomas More Society special counsel who works with the Amistad Project.

Jessy Jacob, a Detroit-based poll worker, alleged in media reports that while he was handling absentee ballots he was instructed by supervisors "to adjust the mailing date of these absentee ballot packages to be dated earlier than they were actually sent." About 70 to 80 poll workers Jacob worked with were allegedly given similar instructions. 

“I do think that this will be worked out in court in the coming weeks and months as they try to wade through which votes should have been counted and which ones should never have been counted,” Griffin told the Lynchburg Reporter.

Griffin provided the following updates on lawsuits filed by Amistad Project attorneys:

1) Privatization of local election offices. The city of Philadelphia received a $10 million grant from the nonprofit Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), which is funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, to increase the number of in-person polling places from 190 to 800, according to a statement online.

"What matters is the sanctity of our elections in America and whether we are going to be governed by free and fair elections that are funded by taxpayers or are we going to allow big corporations, big tech, and big media to run our elections,” Griffin said in an interview. “What’s at stake is a future in which the Koch brothers pay for elections on the right and George Soros and Mark Zuckerberg are paying for elections on the right. That’s not what we want.”

2) Suspension of state laws relating to election procedures. Kline launched a lawsuit against the state of Michigan for allowing drop boxes to replace the act of actually mailing in ballots. 

“Different areas are being affected differently based on politics,” Griffin said. “You get disparate impact on the cities versus the rural areas like the cities get drop boxes while the rural areas hardly get any. The cities receive 'Get out the vote effort' and the rural areas hardly get any. It's just not fair. It's not fair to the millions of voters in this country.”

3) Lawsuits alleging abuse of emergency police powers infringing upon First Amendment freedoms were filed in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

“You can't continue to use emergency powers forever,” Griffin said. “At some point they have to end but you've heard some Democratic governors say they can go on for years and years," he said. "If they're going to try to do that, they need to go through the legislative process.”