After two failed attempts, Bellaire resident Ashley Areeda is trying, once again, to recall Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop.
Her previous submissions failed on a split vote from the four person, bipartisan Board of State Canvassers.
For this third attempt to recall Victoria Bishop, Areeda submitted four different petitions, each with slightly different language.
Language has been the leading factor in the failure of Areeda’s previous recall submissions.
“We wanted to give the Board of State Canvassers several clear paths to approving the petition,” Areeda said. “So each version addresses the same documented conduct, with different levels of detail.”
The conduct mentioned in the submissions is Bishop’s canceling of six voter registrations in Mancelona Township.
Interlochen Public Radio confirmed the cancellations in May by reviewing a paper copy of the Qualified Voter File (QVF) showing the cancellations made by Bishop. But the document IPR received was heavily redacted and the dates of the cancellations were hand written in red ink.
During Areeda’s prior recall attempts, the Board of State Canvassers mentioned multiple times the importance of including the dates of Bishop’s actions.
To allay any fears that Bishop and her lawyer will raise questions about the hand-written dates, Areeda plans to play a voicemail she received from Mancelona Township Clerk Mike Beihl.
“Ashley Areeda, this is Mike Biehl, Mancelona Township Clerk responding to your email on August 25th,” Biehl says in the voicemail. “The dates that are on there are the dates they were canceled and the hand written notes were dated … Everything looks pretty self explanatory to me.”
Areeda is hoping her deluge of submissions will take the focus off the language and onto Bishop’s actions within the QVF.
“This should be decided on the facts and not delayed indefinitely over the structure of a sentence or anything like that,” she said.
The Board of State Canvassers has yet to set a date for a hearing. Bishop and her lawyer will now have a chance to submit their rebuttal to the board.
If the petition language is given the green light, Areeda and her team will have 60 days to collect about 4,000 signatures in hopes of recall language appearing on a May 2027 ballot.
IPR reached out to Victoria Bishop and her lawyer for comment, but did not hear back in time for this broadcast.
