Let’s pretend we’re a ballot in Antrim County
It’s election night, someone just filled in my circles and fed me through a machine. The township clerk and their staff placed me in a secure box, loaded me into a vehicle and drove me to the Antrim County Clerk’s office.
The next step is for the county clerk to submit the election results to the state, but she can’t because she doesn’t have access to the Qualified Voter File (QVF).
That’s where the deputy clerk Annette Marcus came in. She’s completed the required trainings and has full access to the QVF, but today is her last day in the office. She’s resigning to take a position next door at the prosecuting attorney’s office.
Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop lost her access to the QVF in June after she made 128 unauthorized changes to the voter rolls. Starting Monday, there will be no one in the Antrim County Clerk’s office who has full access to the QVF.
County Clerk Victoria Bishop is trying to solve the problem in two ways:
1) By appointing a deputy clerk who can be trained to access the QVF
2) By trying to regain access herself.
Bishop told IPR she’s completed the online trainings required by the Bureau of Elections (BOE) in order to regain access to the QVF. But according to the BOE in an email received by IPR this week, Bishop's trainings are still incomplete.
In addition to the trainings, Bishop must submit a letter explaining to the BOE why, last spring, she sent out over 1000 unauthorized verification postcards to voters in Antrim County. She still hasn’t sent that response.
The new deputy clerk
According to Bishop, Molly Gallop will be taking over as deputy clerk. Bishop declined to provide any information about Gallop or her background. When asked if Gallop has done this kind of work before, Bishop responded, “No, I don’t think she has.”
The next election in Antrim County is in May of 2027. Votebeat Michigan reporter Hayley Harding said that with an election 6 months away, “it’s probably not the end of the world” if there is no one in the county clerk’s office without full access to the QVF.
“As we have learned in this whole saga,” Harding said, “the county clerk is not expected or allowed to make that many changes to the QVF.” Their main role in the QVF occurs when results are submitted to the state on election night.
Township clerks are the main access point to the QVF. IPR contacted almost half of the township clerks in Antrim County earlier this week, and none of them were familiar with Molly Gallop.
Central Lake Township Clerk Judy Kosloski has been working in clerks offices since the 1990s. In her opinion, the six months between now and the May election is not enough time to get someone up to speed.
“We start training almost a year ahead of time,” Kosloski said. “So unless she’s a super fast learner,” she might encounter some problems. Kosloski also wondered, with Marcus out of the office, who is going to train the new deputy clerk?
Looming recall
This job shuffle occurs as the upcoming May election could be a reckoning for the Antrim County Clerk’s office. A petition to remove Bishop from her position as county clerk has been circulating since mid-October.
The leader of the recall effort, Ashley Areeda says they’ve recruited nearly 100 people to gather signatures.
“We have people who are just so motivated,” she said. “Like the 90-year-old man who went out for two days and got over 100 signatures from his neighbors.”
Areeda was optimistic her group will have enough signatures to put Bishop’s recall on the ballot.
But in Michigan, voters don’t decide to remove someone from office. Instead, recalls are treated just like a normal election. Voters in Antrim County next May could be deciding between Victoria Bishop and whoever is going to run against her.
With Annette Marcus moving away from the county clerk’s office, some in Antrim County are speculating that her resignation might be a first step in running against Bishop should the recall petition go through.
Because of potential conflicts of interest, the recall election would be handled by state officials, instead of county officials.
