The Antrim County Clerk, Victoria Bishop, owns a radio station where her husband, known as Trucker Randy, airs a daily three-hour-long conservative talk radio show.

Now he's raising money so the Antrim County Clerk's office can sue Michigan elections officials.

Producer Austin Rowlader breaks down a recent episode for us.

For more information about the Antrim County Clerk and the recent allegations from the state Bureau of Elections, click here.

Producer: Austin Rowlader
Editing: Steve Junker
Music: Blue Dot Sessions

Editor's note: This story was produced for the ear and designed to be heard. If you're able, IPR encourages you to listen to the audio version of this story by clicking the LISTEN button above.

If you'd like more information on recent allegations against the Antrim County Clerks office, click here.
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Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop owns the radio station from which her husband broadcasts a conservative talk show.

Trucker Randy is on air daily for three hours in the Cheboygan area or on his website.

He's using his airtime to raise money so the Antrim County Clerk's office can sue state elections officials.

He's also defending her actions with the Qualified Voter Files — actions the Michigan Bureau of Elections said violate state election laws.

For more reporting on the Antrim County Clerk's office, click here.

Antrim County residents had their first chance Thursday to address county officials about a recent controversy over voter rolls.

The state is investigating the way new county Clerk Victoria Bishop has handled voter registration, which has included mailing postcards to 8 percent of the county's voters asking them to confirm their address.

Bishop won her seat in 2024, after campaigning on a platform of hand-counting every ballot on election days and scrubbing dead people from the voter rolls.

She was at the front of the room during public comment at Thursday's regularly scheduled county commission meeting.

Resident Ashley Areeda said cards mailed out asking people to confirm their registration have created unnecessary fear and uncertainty.

"This county deserves better than confusion, division and distrust. We deserve stability. We deserve professionalism, and we deserve election processes that strengthen public confidence instead of weakening it," Areeda said.

Others defended Bishop and said this is exactly why she was elected in 2024: to clean up voter rolls.

"We all want to make sure we have accurate, qualified voter files and I think that's partially why Vicki was elected," said Elk Rapids resident Corky Crimmons.

"To the board, I want to say thank you for listening, and to Victoria Bishop ... thank you for doing the job that we voted you in for."

Bishop is married to Randy Bishop, a popular conservative radio host in northern Michigan, who was one of the leading voices casting doubt on the 2020 election results in Antrim County and the rest of Michigan.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections has said that if Bishop does not stop her attempts to change the voter files, she could face criminal charges.

Under Michigan election law, voter rolls are maintained by local clerks, not county clerks. And the Bureau says missing two recent elections — part of the justification used in questioning registrations — is not sufficient grounds to question or change someone's registration status.

A letter from the Bureau to Bishop says “Michigan law is explicit that a clerk may not cancel, or cause the cancellation of, a voter’s registration solely because a voter has missed one or two elections.”

Some of the people who received postcards questioning their registrations were too young to vote two elections ago.

As of Thursday night, IPR’s reporting had confirmed six people whose voter status was changed by Victoria Bishop. That’s according to township clerks, who have urged Bishop not to send the cards.

In Milton Township, Clerk Janet Beebe confirmed that she has identified one voter in her files and she's going to be doing a more thorough check in the coming days to see if there are more.

That puts the count at three in Banks Township, two in Elk Rapids Township, and one in Milton Township.

The Bishops have threatened to sue the state of Michigan as well, including Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

According to a Votebeat report last week, Randy Bishop said on his show, “Vicki just made the decision ... ‘Somebody’s got to stop [Benson]. Somebody’s got to stop her.’ I said, ‘Well, why not you?’”

IPR's Austin Rowlader contributed to this report.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections has formally demanded that Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop stop trying to change or cancel voters’ registrations in her county.

If she doesn’t, she could face criminal charges, Jonathan Brater, the bureau director, wrote in a letter dated Thursday and obtained by Votebeat. She could also lose her ability to help administer elections in her northern Michigan county.

“You do not have unlimited authority to conduct any action you see fit simply because you were elected to office,” Brater wrote, a direct response to a press release Bishop put out last week.

Bishop declined to comment and hung up on a Votebeat reporter when reached by phone Thursday.

Bishop, a Republican, has previously claimed that Antrim County’s voter roll is cluttered with people who are dead or no longer live in the county. In March, she sent postcards out to many voters warning them that if they did not confirm their address and registration, they could be deregistered. Records obtained by Interlochen Public Radio show that about 1,800 people received such notices — 8% of the county’s total registered voters as of November 2025.

The state Bureau of Elections sent Bishop a letter on April 14 warning Bishop that her actions were illegal and fell outside her authority as a county clerk. In Michigan, municipal clerks — those at the city and township level — are in charge of maintaining voter registration lists.

The notices have confused voters and municipal clerks alike. For instance, Banks Township Clerk Julie Chellis pointed out that a state guideline says unless a clerk has indication that a voter has moved or died, they should not be removed from the roll unless it’s been more than 20 years since they last voted — but many of the affected people are still active voters.

“The list doesn’t make sense to me, because there are 18-year-olds on that list. Where did you get that list from?” she said. “There are people that are voting absentee, as we speak, that I have ballots coming for, who are on that list.”

Relations between the bureau — which creates guidelines for clerks of all levels across the state — and Bishop have significantly deteriorated as a result of the controversy. The same day the state sent its latest letter, Bishop’s husband, a radio host known as Trucker Randy, spent much of his morning show raising money for Bishop to sue Brater as well as Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

It appears no suit has been filed yet. But a fundraising website set up by Bishop suggests that she is not planning to sue over the letters from the bureau, but rather over rules Benson and the Michigan Department of State have implemented or proposed on how to run elections.

Trucker Randy said during his show Thursday that the decision to file suit came after God told Bishop to “pick up the sword.” They are working with Kevin Kijewski, a former Republican candidate for attorney general who provided the legal defense for one of President Donald Trump’s electors who allegedly submitted a false certificate of election to Congress in 2020. Kijewski told Votebeat on Friday that he did not comment on “potential client matters.”

“Vicki just made the decision,” Trucker Randy said Thursday. “She says, ‘Somebody’s got to stop [Benson]. Somebody’s got to stop her.’ I said, ‘Well, why not you?’”

In its April 14 letter, the Bureau of Elections asked Bishop to answer several questions about her actions by April 23. It appears she tried to respond to some of the questions on April 20 but had multiple typos in the email address to which she sent her answers. In its Thursday letter, the bureau said it had not received an official response from Bishop, although it acknowledged her April 19 press release. However, Angela Benander, a spokesperson for the Department of State, said Friday the Bureau of Elections had finally received Bishop’s response and was reviewing it.

Benander also confirmed that the Bureau of Elections’ letter was already being prepared before Bishop announced her intention to sue.

“This is unrelated,” she said.

Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop says she was trying to ease the burden on township clerks when she sent postcards to voters asking them to confirm their address.

That was part of Bishop's response to demands from the state Bureau of Elections, which issued a letter accusing Bishop of improperly changing the state’s Qualified Voter Files (QVF) – the official list of registered voters.

The state says Bishop has no authority to question voters' addresses in the way she did.

In her written response, Bishop says her intent was to quote “expedite the information and absorb the cost for the township clerks.”

“The Majority of feedback I have received from the Voter’s (sic) who have received the cards is 'It’s About Time,'" Bishop wrote.

Emails obtained by IPR reveal that township clerks pointed out a number of issues with the postcards and asked her not to send them.

In one message, Debbie Husband, clerk for Elk Rapids township, told Bishop voters were coming to her office in a panic.

“They were questioning why they received this,” Husband later told IPR. “They were coming in and telling me they haven’t moved, they haven’t changed their address..they’ve been coming in to vote.”

Bishop did not respond to requests for comment.

The postcard voters received tells them that their registration could be canceled if they don’t return the card or they don’t vote in either of the next two elections.

IPR has obtained the list of about 1,800 Antrim County voters who were sent notices asking them to confirm their address.

Some of the voters who were sent verification cards were chosen because they hadn’t voted in the last 2 major elections.

The letter to Bishop says “Michigan law is explicit that a clerk may not cancel, or cause the cancellation of, a voter’s registration solely because a voter has missed one or two elections.”

But some of the people who received cards were too young to vote two elections ago.

The man who runs a group called the Election Integrity Force … based in metro Detroit … says he just wants free and fair elections. But he’s flagging individual voters for investigation by their local clerks without verifying if there’s any reason to be concerned.

And his sights are set on Antrim County.

Plus, the U.S. Supreme Court hands a win to opponents of Line 5, deciding that a lawsuit over the future of the pipeline should stay in state courts, not federal.

Reporting by Vivian La, Austin Rowlader

Producer: Austin Rowlader
Editing: Steve Junker
Music: Blue Dot Sessions

The Michigan Bureau of Elections has sent a letter to the Antrim County Clerk demanding that she explain some actions she’s taken in the year-or-so she’s been in office.

State officials say Victoria Bishop has been too zealous in her efforts to "clean up" Antrim County's voter roll and is acting outside her legal authority. Votebeat reporter Hayley Harding explains what's happening.

Also, a show of solidarity for immigration detainees on a hunger strike at North Lake Processing Center.

Reporting from Austin Rowlader and Claire Keenan-Kurgan.

Producer: Austin Rowlader
Editing: Peter Payette
Music: Blue Dot Sessions

The Michigan Bureau of Elections is demanding answers from a controversial county clerk who reportedly canceled or changed voters’ registrations when she wasn’t supposed to.

The bureau sent a letter to Antrim County Clerk Victoria Bishop on April 14 saying it had received information suggesting she had made voter registration changes “that fall outside the scope of your statutory authority and fail to comply with the law.”

Bishop, a Republican, was first elected in 2024 on a platform of cleaning up Antrim County’s voter roll. She is associated with the wing of the Republican Party that claims the 2020 election was stolen from President Donald Trump.

Michigan says Antrim County clerk canceled voter registrations

The bureau learned that Bishop, who took office in 2025, apparently sent confirmation and cancellation notices — essentially, notices sent by election officials when they believe a voter has moved — to an unknown number of voters who didn’t vote in the last two major elections. However, the bureau noted in the letter, “Michigan law is explicit that a clerk may not cancel, or cause the cancellation of, a voter’s registration solely because a voter has missed one or two elections.”

The bureau also said it has information suggesting Bishop did not independently verify the information she acted on to send the notices, as required by the state’s election officials’ manual.

The letter says Bishop also allegedly changed voters’ statuses in the state voter file, known as the Qualified Voter File or QVF, to “Cancel” or “Reject” “without any agreement or delegation of authority allowing you to do so from the affected local jurisdiction.”

County clerks aren’t allowed to unilaterally update the QVF or send such notices to voters, even for proper reasons. Michigan law puts local clerks — at the city and township level — in charge of maintaining voter records for their jurisdictions.

The letter, signed by Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater, asks Bishop to provide a detailed explanation of what she did and why, as well as a justification for her actions. It goes on to request lists of the voters to whom she sent notices and whose status she changed in the QVF.

Angela Benander, a spokesperson for the Michigan Department of State, said that the bureau began looking into Bishop’s actions after receiving “reports about concerning activity” from voters and local clerks alike. From there, state officials looked at the QVF and found enough irregularities to prompt the requests to Bishop.

“The BOE is able to see the activity of clerks in the QVF,” Benander said.

Bishop did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Antrim County is a hotbed of election conspiracy theories

Controversy has swirled around Antrim County elections even before Bishop took office. The northern Michigan county was at the center of election conspiracy theories following the 2020 election, when the county’s unofficial results initially showed Joe Biden winning the heavily Republican county by a few thousand votes. The error, which occurred after ballot tabulators weren’t correctly updated, was quickly corrected, but Trump and others seized on the mistake as evidence that voting machines were rigged against him.

In the 2024 election, Bishop defeated the county clerk who had overseen the error by pledging to “restore election integrity in Antrim County.” During that campaign, Bishop said she believed “we still have dead people and people who no longer live in Antrim County” on the voter roll and promised to work with local clerks to remove them before the 2026 election.

Bishop is married to Randy Bishop, a conservative talk radio host best known as “Trucker Randy” who has claimed to have evidence that the 2020 election was stolen.

Antrim County will hold a few small elections in May, but township clerks will do the vast majority of the work to oversee those.

But if Bishop is unable to provide the requested information to the state, it could be the first step in ultimately stripping her of her election-related duties. The state has done it before — Stan Grot, the Shelby Township clerk, only recently had his own authority reinstated after being accused of election-related felonies. Other local clerks were removed just before the 2024 election for telling state officials they planned to hand-count ballots.

It is also possible Bishop could face criminal charges. The letter notes that failure to “obey a lawful instruction given by the Secretary may result in a criminal misdemeanor.”

It wouldn’t be Bishop’s first brush with the law; last year, the Michigan Department of State reprimanded Bishop for filing incorrect campaign finance disclosures, and a judge found her in contempt of court.

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.