Michigan

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      Judge Orders Sanctions Against Pro-Trump Lawyers Over Election Lawsuit

      by

      Sidney Powell, L. Lin Wood and seven other lawyers deceived federal courts and debased the judicial process, a federal judge wrote.A federal judge in Michigan on Wednesday night ordered sanctions to be levied against nine pro-Trump lawyers, including Sidney Powell and L. Lin Wood, ruling that a lawsuit laden with conspiracy theories that they filed last year challenging the validity of the presidential election was “a historic and profound abuse of the judicial process.”In her decision, Judge Linda V. Parker of the Federal District Court in Detroit ordered the lawyers to be referred to the local legal authorities in their home states for possible suspension or disbarment.Declaring that the lawsuit should never have been filed, Judge Parker wrote in her 110-page order that it was “one thing to take on the charge of vindicating rights associated with an allegedly fraudulent election,” but another to deceive “a federal court and the American people into believing that rights were infringed.”“This is what happened here,” she wrote.Ms. Powell and Mr. Wood did not respond immediately to comment on the ruling. The other lawyers, including two who served in the Trump administration, could not be reached on Wednesday night for comment.The Michigan lawsuit, filed in late November, was one of four legal actions, collectively known as the “Kraken” suits, that Ms. Powell filed in courts around the country, claiming that tabulation machines made by Dominion Voting Systems were tampered with by a bizarre set of characters, such as the financier George Soros or Venezuelan intelligence agents. In the suits, she complained without merit that those conspirators began a complicated, covert plot to digitally flip votes from President Donald J. Trump to his opponent, Joseph R. Biden Jr.Judge Parker’s order came about a month after a marathon hearing during which she repeatedly pressed Ms. Powell and her colleagues about how — or even whether — they had verified the statements of witnesses who filed sworn statements making claims of widespread fraud and tampering with voting machines. Several times, Judge Parker expressed astonishment at the lawyers’ answers, telling them they had a responsibility to perform “minimal due diligence” and calling some of the lawsuit’s claims “fantastical.”In her decision, Judge Parker accused Ms. Powell, who is based in Dallas, and Mr. Wood, who is based in Atlanta, of abusing “the well-established rules” of litigation by making claims that were backed by neither the law nor evidence, but were instead marked by “speculation, conjecture and unwarranted suspicion.”“This case was never about fraud,” Judge Parker wrote. “It was about undermining the people’s faith in our democracy and debasing the judicial process to do so.”David Fink, a lawyer for the City of Detroit, called the ruling “a powerful message to attorneys everywhere.”“Follow the rules, stick to the truth or pay a price,” Mr. Fink said. “Lawyers will now know that there are consequences for filing frivolous lawsuits.”Trump’s Bid to Subvert the ElectionCard 1 of 4A monthslong campaign. More

    • 88 Shares99 Views

      in Elections

      In Michigan, Pro-Impeachment Republicans Face Voters’ Wrath

      by

      Representative Peter Meijer, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald J. Trump, seeks “decency and humility” in Western Michigan, but has found anger, fear and misinformation.GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Representative Peter Meijer cites Gerald R. Ford as his inspiration these days, not because the former president held his House seat for 24 years or because his name is all over this city — from its airport to its freeway to its arena — but because in Mr. Ford, the freshman congressman sees virtues lost to his political party.Ford took control after a president resigned rather than be impeached for abusing his power in an attempt to manipulate the outcome of an election.“It was a period of turmoil,” said Mr. Meijer, who was one of 10 Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald J. Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Ford’s greatest asset, he added, was “offering — this word is becoming too loaded of late — a sense of morals, moral leadership, a sense of value and centering decency and humility.”“Sometimes when you’re surrounded by cacophony, it helps to have someone sitting there who isn’t adding another screaming voice onto the pile,” Mr. Meijer added.Six months after the Capitol attack and 53 miles southeast of Grand Rapids, on John Parish’s farm in the hamlet of Vermontville, Mr. Meijer’s problems sat on folding chairs on the Fourth of July. They ate hot dogs, listened to bellicose speakers and espoused their own beliefs that reflected how, even at age 33, Mr. Meijer may represent the Republican Party’s past more than its future.The stars of the “Festival of Truth” on Sunday were adding their screaming voices onto the pile, and the 100 or so West Michiganders in the audience were enthusiastically soaking it up. Many of them inhabited an alternative reality in which Mr. Trump was re-elected, their votes were stolen, the deadly Jan. 6 mob was peaceful, coronavirus vaccines were dangerous and conservatives were oppressed.“God is forgiving, and — I don’t know — we’re forgiving people,” Geri Nichols, 79, of nearby Hastings, said as she spoke of her disappointment in Mr. Meijer. “But he did wrong. He didn’t support our president like he should have.”Under an unseasonably warm sun, her boyfriend, Gary Munson, 80, shook his head, agreeing: “He doesn’t appear to be what he says he is.”Representative Peter Meijer, a freshman member of Congress, was one of 10 House Republicans to vote for former President Donald J. Trump’s impeachment.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesFor all its political eccentricities, Michigan is not unique. Dozens of congressional candidates planning challenges next year are promoting the false claims of election fraud pressed by Mr. Trump. But Western Michigan does have one distinction: It is home to 20 percent of the House Republicans who voted to impeach Mr. Trump — that is, two of 10.The other one, Representative Fred Upton, 68, took office in an adjacent district west and south of here the year before Mr. Meijer was born, 1987. But the two find themselves in similar political straits. Both will face multiple primary challengers next year who accuse them of disloyalty — or worse, treason — for holding Mr. Trump responsible for the riot that raged as they met to formalize the election results for the victor, President Biden.Both men followed their impeachment votes with votes to create a bipartisan commission to examine the Capitol riot, two of 35 House Republicans to do so. Both face a backlash from Republican voters who are enraged by what they allege are an effort by the F.B.I. to hunt down peaceful protesters, a news media silencing conservative voices, a governor who has taken away their livelihoods with overzealous pandemic restrictions and a Democratic secretary of state who has stolen their votes.Many of their grievances have less to do with Mr. Trump himself than the false claims that he promoted, which have taken root with voters who now look past him.“People think people who support Trump are like ‘Trump is our God,’” said Audra Johnson, one of Mr. Meijer’s Republican challengers, explaining why she refuses to get inoculated against the coronavirus with a vaccine the Trump administration helped create. “No, he’s not.”Audra Johnson, a pro-Trump activist, is one of many challengers to Mr. Meijer in the Republican primary next year.Emily Elconin for The New York Times“People are terrified,” Ms. Johnson added over grilled cheese and tomato soup at Crow’s Nest Restaurant in Kalamazoo. She added, “We’re heading toward a civil war, if we’re not already in a cold civil war.”In June, a Republican-led State Senate inquiry into Michigan’s 2020 vote count affirmed Mr. Biden’s Michigan victory by more than 154,000 votes, nearly 3 percentage points, and found “no evidence” of “either significant acts of fraud” or “an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity.”“The committee strongly recommends citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain,” it concluded.The Meijer name graces grocery stores that are a regional staple — founded in 1934 by the congressman’s great-grandfather, Hendrik Meijer, a Dutch immigrant — and a popular botanical garden and sculpture park, established by his grandfather, Frederik, that is one of Grand Rapids’ biggest attractions. His father, Hank, and his uncle, Doug, took over the Meijer chain in 1990 as Forbes-listed billionaires.Peter Meijer’s pedigree is matched by his résumé: a year at West Point, a degree from Columbia University, eight years in the Army Reserve, including a deployment to Iraq as an intelligence adviser, and an M.B.A. from New York University.But these days in some circles, “Meijer” is less synonymous with groceries, gardens and prestige than with the impeachment of Mr. Trump.“Last time, the problem was we were running against Peter Meijer,” said Tom Norton, who lost to Mr. Meijer in the 2020 primary and is challenging him again in 2022. “The advantage this time is we’re running against Peter Meijer. It’s a complete flip.”In his Capitol Hill office, Mr. Meijer said that in one-on-one discussions with some of his constituents, he could make headway explaining his votes and how dangerous the lies of a stolen presidential election had become for the future of American democracy.“The challenge is if you believe that Nov. 3 was a landslide victory for Donald Trump that was stolen, and Jan. 6 was the day to stop that steal,” he said. “I can’t come to an understanding with somebody when we’re dealing with completely separate sets of facts and realities.”At a recent event, he said, a woman informed Mr. Meijer that he would shortly be arrested for treason and hauled before a military tribunal, presumably to be shot.“People are willing to kill and die over these alternative realities,” he said.Representative Fred Upton, another Republican impeachment voter, has been in office since 1987.Anna Moneymaker/The New York TimesYet at least one of his primary challengers is amplifying that alternative reality. Ms. Johnson, a pro-Trump activist, splashed onto the scene in 2019 as the “MAGA bride,” when she appeared at her wedding reception over the July 4 weekend in a Make America Great Again dress.She helped organize armed protests of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s pandemic restrictions at the State Capitol in Lansing and traveled with a convoy of buses to Washington for Mr. Trump’s Jan. 6 protest against election certification.While she said she did not enter the Capitol that day, she said she knew people who knew people who did — peacefully, she insists.“Honestly, they’re terrified that the F.B.I. is going to come knock on their door,” Ms. Johnson said.Mr. Norton, who jousted with Mr. Meijer at the Northview Fourth of July parade in a middle-class Grand Rapids neighborhood, said afterward that he was sure there was election fraud in 2020 and was pushing for an Arizona-style “forensic audit” that would go even deeper than the audit already conducted.One of Mr. Upton’s challengers, state Representative Steve Carra, has introduced legislation to force such an audit in Michigan, even though he conceded that he had only skimmed the June report, which not only concluded that there was no fraud but called for those making such false claims to be referred for prosecution.“To say that there’s no evidence of widespread fraud I think is wrong,” said Mr. Carra, who was elected to his first term in November, at age 32.He sees a golden opportunity to finally unseat Mr. Upton, who has been in Congress since before Mr. Carra was born. Redistricting could bring a new cache of voters from neighboring Battle Creek who have not spent decades pulling the lever for the incumbent. Mr. Upton’s challengers are bringing his moderate voting record to primary voters’ attention.But above all, there is Mr. Upton’s impeachment vote.“When Fred Upton voted to impeach President Trump, that was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me,” Mr. Carra said, sitting on a park bench in Three Rivers, Mich.Jon Rocha, another of Mr. Upton’s challengers, spoke in measured tones to a reporter about his rival’s vote to impeach. Mr. Upton had been acting out of emotion, said the former Marine, who is Mexican American and a political newcomer, and had failed to consider Mr. Trump’s due process or take the time to investigate.But onstage in front of the crowd at the Festival of Truth, Mr. Rocha’s tone darkened.“This country is under attack,” he thundered. “Our children are being indoctrinated to hate the color of their skin, to hate this country and to believe this country is systemically racist and meant to oppress anybody with a different skin pigment. I can attest to you, as an American Mexican, that is not the case.”Jon Rocha, who spoke at the festival in Vermontville, is challenging Mr. Upton in the Republican primary.Emily Elconin for The New York TimesOppression is a theme: Ms. Johnson said she understood — though, she hastened to add, did not condone — violence by beleaguered conservatives. Mr. Norton suggested that transgender women were driven by mental illness to lop off body parts, and yet it was only those who objected who were ridiculed. Larry Eberly, the organizer of the Festival of Truth, warned the crowd that “we’re being manipulated” into accepting coronavirus vaccines, bellowing to cheers, “I will die first before they shove that needle into my arm.”In the end, none of this may matter to the composition of Congress. The anti-incumbent vote may be badly split, allowing Representatives Meijer and Upton to survive their primaries and sail to re-election.Mr. Meijer’s district had been held for a decade by Justin Amash, a libertarian-leaning iconoclast who was fiercely critical of Mr. Trump and was the first House Republican to call for his impeachment. Amid the backlash, Mr. Amash left the Republican Party in 2019 to try to run as a libertarian. Then, when Mr. Amash found no quarter, he retired.But Mr. Meijer will have his name, the support of the Republican apparatus and a formidable money advantage.The question vexing him is not so much his own future, but his party’s. That is where he looks wistfully to Ford.“Was he necessarily the leader on moving the Republican Party in a direction? I can’t speak to what his internal conversations were,” Mr. Meijer said. “But in terms of giving confidence to the country that Republican leadership could be ethical and honest and sincere, I think he hit it out of the park.” More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Michigan Republicans Debunk Voter Fraud Claims in Unsparing Report

      by

      The report, produced by a G.O.P.-led committee in the State Senate, exposes false claims made about the 2020 election by Trump allies in Michigan and other states.A committee led by Michigan Republicans on Wednesday published an extraordinary debunking of voter fraud claims in the state, delivering a comprehensive rebuke to a litany of accusations about improprieties in the 2020 election and its aftermath.The 55-page report, produced by a Michigan State Senate committee of three Republicans and one Democrat, is a systematic rebuttal to an array of false claims about the election from supporters of former President Donald J. Trump. The authors focus overwhelmingly on Michigan, but they also expose lies perpetuated about the vote-counting process in Georgia.The report is unsparing in its criticism of those who have promoted false theories about the election. It debunks claims from Trump allies including Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow; Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former president’s lawyer; and Mr. Trump himself.Yet while the report eviscerates claims about election fraud, its authors also use the allegations to urge their legislative colleagues to change Michigan’s voting laws to make absentee voting harder and limit the availability of drop boxes for absentee ballots, as Republicans have done in other swing states as they try to limit voting.“This committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election,” the authors wrote, before adding: “It is the opinion of this committee that the Legislature has a duty to make statutory improvements to our elections system.”Michigan Republicans, who control the state’s Legislature, have for weeks debated a series of new voting restrictions. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has said she will veto the legislation, but Michigan law allows citizens to circumvent the governor by collecting 340,047 signatures.Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said on Wednesday that she hoped Republican lawmakers would use the report to “cease their attempts to deceive citizens with misinformation and abandon legislation based on the lies that undermine our democracy.”Here are some of the conclusions from the Michigan report that debunked Trump allies’ claims about the election:Referring to Antrim County in Northern Michigan — where local election officials briefly and inadvertently transposed voting numbers before correcting them, leading to false conspiracy theories about voting machines — the report suggests that Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, a Democrat, should “consider investigating those who have been utilizing misleading and false information about Antrim County to raise money or publicity for their own ends.” It adds that anyone who promoted the Antrim County theories as the prime evidence of a nationwide conspiracy to steal the election had left “all other statements and actions they make in a position of zero credibility.”The Voter Integrity Project, a right-wing group, has said that 289,866 “illegal votes” were cast in Michigan. The report’s authors called 40 people from the group’s list of supposed voters who received absentee ballots without requesting them and found just two who said they had been sent unrequested ballots. One was on the state’s permanent absentee voter list. The other voted absentee in the 2020 primary election and may have forgotten about checking a box then to request an absentee ballot in the general election.The report found that the chaos that unfolded after Election Day as votes were counted at the TCF Center in Detroit was the fault of Republican operatives who called on supporters to protest the count. “The Wayne County Republican Party and other, independent organizations, ought to issue a repudiation of the actions of certain individuals that created a panic and had untrained and unnumbered persons descend on the TCF Center,” the report states.Claims that Dominion Voting Systems machines in Michigan and other states had been hacked to change results were false, the report said. The committee’s chairman, State Senator Ed McBroom, a Republican, called Georgia officials to investigate claims made by Jovan Pulitzer, who said he had access to manipulate vote counts. Mr. Pulitzer’s testimony “has been demonstrated to be untrue and a complete fabrication,” the report said. “He did not, at any time, have access to data or votes, let alone have the ability to manipulate the counts directly or by the introduction of malicious software to the tabulators. Nor could he spot fraudulent ballots from non-fraudulent ones.”Of Mr. Lindell’s wide-ranging claims of fraud and impropriety in vote-counting systems, the report states that “this narrative is ignorant of multiple levels of the actual election process,” before embarking on a lengthy debunking of his claims.While Mr. Trump claimed that more votes had been cast in Detroit than people who live there, the report found that turnout in the city was under 50 percent of eligible voters and about 37 percent of its population.No ballots were secretly “dumped” at the Detroit vote-counting center. “A widely circulated picture in media and online reports allegedly showed ballots secretly being delivered late at night but, in reality, it was a photo of a WXYZ-TV photographer hauling his equipment,” the report states. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Michigan Republicans find no voter fraud and say Trump claims ‘ludicrous’

      by

      An investigation into the Michigan election by state Republican lawmakers has concluded that there is no evidence of widespread fraud and dismissed the need for an Arizona-style forensic audit of the results.The news comes amid a broad push by many Republicans – from Donald Trump to state parties – to push unfounded lies about Joe Biden’s victory, often promoting baseless conspiracy theories and evidence-free accusations of fraud.The Michigan Republican report released on Wednesday followed 28 hours of legislative hearings starring local and national pro-Trump conspiracy theorists such as former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. The report labeled many of their claims “ludicrous” and called on the state Democratic attorney general to open investigations into those who may have profited from making false claims.The report was authored by the Republican-controlled senate oversight committee and it said it found no evidence of dead voters, no precincts with 100% turnout and no evidence of a Detroit ballot dump that benefited Biden, as GOP activists have claimed occurred.“There is no evidence presented at this time to prove either significant acts of fraud or that an organized, wide-scale effort to commit fraudulent activity was perpetrated in order to subvert the will of Michigan voters,” the report reads.“Citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan.”The report represents a stunning repudiation of the unsubstantiated claims made by the state’s pro-Trump activists and Trump himself in their bid to overturn the critical battleground state’s results. Biden won Michigan by about 154,000 votes, or three percentage points. The tally was upheld by judges appointed by both parties in state and federal court, the bipartisan boards of state canvassers and reviews by election officials.Still, Trump supporters have been applying intense pressure on state Republican officials to work to overturn the election results, and have censured or promised primary challenges for those who reject their far-fetched claims.Trump had not responded to the report as of Wednesday afternoon, but in May issued a characteristic threat to his party when he said that Michigan’s senators “should be run out of office” if they haven’t reviewed “the Fraudulent Presidential Election of 2020”.In the report, state senator Ed McBroom took aim at the pro-Trump activists who “who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain”.“If you are profiting by making false claims, that’s pretty much the definition of fraud,” McBroom said.The office of Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, said on Wednesday that it’s still reviewing the report.Despite that the report rebukes the conspiracy theories, the investigation found “glaring issues that must be addressed” in state election law, and the party is still pushing forward with a package of 39 controversial voting restrictions that it plans to ram through using a constitutional loophole that can bypass the veto of the Democrat governor, Gretchen Whitmer.The Democrat state senator Jeff Irwin, who serves on the oversight committee, was the lone vote against the report. He noted that Michigan has paper ballots that confirm the results and praised Republican committee members for being “willing to stand and say that Michigan has free and fair elections”, but he added that the recommendations for new restrictions are unnecessary.“They are responding to their GOP constituency more than they are offering good policy ideas,” he said. More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Sweet Cherries, Bitter Politics: Two Farm Stands and the Nation’s Divides

      by

      Opposing views of mask requirements have rippled across a Michigan County, even influencing where people buy their fruit.ELK RAPIDS, Mich. — The two farm stands lie just 12 miles apart along Route 31, a straight, flat road running through a bucolic wonderland of cherry orchards and crystalline lakes in northwestern Michigan.Yet when one stand instituted a no mask, no service rule last July and the other went to court to combat the state’s mask mandate, they set in motion a split that still ripples across Antrim County.Linda McDonnell, a retiree who began summering in the area 20 years ago, used to pop into Friske Farm Market regularly to treat herself to a few doughnuts. She loved watching them emerge piping hot from the kitchen, and delighted in their soft, chewy interiors beneath a crunchy outer layer. Then Friske’s joined the outcry against masks.“Oh my God, I do miss them, but I will not go there because of the politics,” said Ms. McDonnell, 69, a former schoolteacher. “They will not get my business.”The family that owns Friske Farm Market sued Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last summer, arguing that wearing masks should have remained a personal choice.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesOn the other side, Randy Bishop eyes the King Orchards farm stand with similar rancor.The white-bearded Mr. Bishop, sometimes called the “Rush Limbaugh of Antrim County,” abandoned long-distance trucking during the 2009 recession and currently hosts a talk radio show. He will boycott King’s forever, he said, “along with other progressive, communist business owners in this county.”Differences that had always simmered beneath the surface were inflamed by the coronavirus pandemic and pushed many people in places like Antrim County into their tribal corners. Now the molten flow of anger over the presidential election and virus mitigation measures is hardening into enduring divisions over activities as simple as where people buy their fruit.“Political divisions have infiltrated other parts of people’s lives a lot more than they used to,” said Larry Peck, 68, a retired oil company executive. “Choosing where you go, choosing where you shop, choosing all the things that your life interacts with that used to be not political now are a lot more political.”Antrim County, population 23,324, is known for its chain of 14 long, narrow, sometimes turquoise lakes spilling into Lake Michigan. The abundant water tempers the climate and, combined with the low, cigar-shaped hills, creates ideal conditions to grow fruit.Cherries in particular dominate the landscape. Sweet cherries. Sour cherries. Cherry Tree Inn. Cherry Suites Assisted Living. They populate every menu. Pie, of course. Cherry and chicken sandwich wraps. Black letters on roadside signs spell out greetings like “Have a cherry day!”Cherries dominate the landscape in Antrim County. Sarah Rice for The New York TimesFriske’s and King’s are two of the most popular farm stands — both low, red, wooden barnlike structures with white trim. Friske’s, which bills itself as “Not Your Average Fruit Stand,” features the Orchard Cafe, a bakery and a store stuffed with curios as well as everything needed to make pie. King’s is more homespun, with apples displayed in wooden baskets; customers are encouraged to pick their own fruit from the orchards.Last summer, the Friske family sued Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, arguing that wearing masks should have remained a personal choice. When the State Supreme Court nullified a series of the governor’s Covid-related executive orders in October, it effectively tossed out her mask mandate and made the lawsuit moot. Michigan’s health department issued a mask directive, which the Friske Farm Market defied until the state threatened to revoke its business license.The Friskes turned to Facebook to explain their position in videos that attracted both zealous supporters and harsh critics. An area newspaper profiling the ruckus dredged up the archconservative political past of Richard Friske, who died in 2002; he bought the family orchards some 60 years ago after serving in Nazi Germany’s Luftwaffe.Jon R. Friske, 23, a member of the third generation to run the farm, said the family anticipated being attacked for making masks voluntary. More online warriors fired nasty broadsides than regular customers, he insisted.“It is cancel culture, that is all it is — they did not agree with what we were doing so they desperately tried to muddy our reputation and discredit us,” he said. “They come after us in the comments and call us ‘Grandma killers.’ Whatever they want to throw at us frankly leaves no room for personal responsibility and personal accountability, and that is not what America is all about.”By comparison, King Orchards made masks obligatory after Ms. Whitmer issued her executive order in July. The farm stand constructed a hand sanitizer station in the gravel parking lot and distributed free masks.Juliette King McAvoy behind plastic at the cash registers at King Orchards. The Republican-led State Senate blocked her from joining the Michigan Cherry Committee.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesMonths later, the Biden campaign released a commercial about the negative effects of climate change on fruit farming that featured three generations of the King family in their orchards. (John King, the patriarch, moved to the area from downstate in 1980 to take up farming and bought the Route 31 farm stand in 2001.)“For us it wasn’t about the party line or our personal politics, it was about being an advocate for mitigating climate change,” said Juliette King McAvoy, Mr. King’s daughter. Still, the Republican-controlled State Senate took the unusual step in April of blocking her appointment to the Michigan Cherry Committee.Area regulars chose sides, arguing endlessly over freedom versus public health. Both fruit stands claimed that they gained customers, even if some stormed away, while the need to eat at home drove a sales boom. Last month, King Orchards dropped its mandatory mask policy after the state did.But matters did not end with the masks.Vocal residents had also taken sides in a nagging battle over the results of the presidential vote in Antrim County. A human error in programming some of the Dominion voting machines in the county resulted in several thousand votes for Donald J. Trump being attributed to Mr. Biden.Although the mistake was caught immediately and corrected, it prompted one of the longest-running lawsuits over the results, with Mr. Trump cheering from the sideline.While court proceedings unrolled in the background, vaccines became the next yardstick for measuring which friends to keep and which businesses to frequent as daily life inched away from the pandemic.“Our core values were not aligning at all,” Joyce Brodsky said about her unvaccinated neighbor.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesJoyce Brodsky, 69, a painter and retired art teacher, spent the pandemic at home, occasionally passing time with a neighbor, a former auto salesman, who also stayed isolated in his lakeside house, festooned with a large Trump sign.She tried to not let it irk her, telling herself that many Trump banners on barns in the area were even larger. When her neighbor attempted to rattle her by talking about politics, she steered the conversations to his photo collages or other subjects, and she felt like the two of them were secure inside their Covid-free bubble.They took regular bike rides together until he returned from a trip to Florida, when she asked whether he had been vaccinated. He would never get vaccinated, he told her, suggesting that she had no right to ask.“Our core values were not aligning at all,” said Ms. Brodsky, who stopped the bike rides at that point. “Why would you not follow the science?”At Friske’s, plenty of pickup trucks in the parking lot still sport Trump-Pence bumper stickers, and the doughnuts lure regulars for breakfast. “We got fat,” joked Brenda Coseo, 62, after she and her husband, Chris, moved into their summer home in January and for part of the spring to escape the high coronavirus numbers in San Diego, where they usually live.Red, white and blue apparel at Friske Farm Market.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesThey liked Friske’s for being more relaxed about the pandemic rules, and decried the fact that so many local restaurants took a hard financial hit because of lockdowns. “It just seemed pretty unwarranted,” said Mr. Coseo, 63. “I am not the one counting dead people from Covid, but still.”Not everyone in the neighborhood agreed. On Route 31 just south of Friske’s, Kim Cook, 53, had opened Grace: A Gallery in an old church with a distinctive bell tower to sell the work of some 60 area artists.“I never went in there after I found out that they were not requiring masks,” said Ms. Cook, who once worked at Friske’s. Her own mask requirement, however, prompted abuse from several customers, including a woman who lunged at her, so she closed the gallery.Antrim County is the kind of place where it takes decades to be considered a local. The auto executives, assembly workers, teachers and others who eventually retire to their second homes from downstate Michigan remain outsiders. Residents who survive off the short summer tourist season call visitors “fudgies” because they frequent the fudge shops, and the retirees “perma-fudgies.”The pandemic brought a new breed: younger tech-savvy entrepreneurs from as far away as California who could work from home. They arrived with families and paid for houses in cash, fueling resentments.Antrim County is known for its chain of 14 narrow, sometimes turquoise lakes spilling into Lake Michigan.Sarah Rice for The New York TimesIn this county, Republicans have long controlled virtually every elected office. Still, a local judge, a former Republican politician, dismissed the case alleging fraud in the presidential election on May 18, saying that the requested state audit had been conducted.Yet the fighting continues. The county commissioners, meeting on Zoom, spend hours listening to angry residents. At a recent meeting, one resident decried the fact that the commissioners were getting sucked into false allegations that made the county a “laughingstock.” Another said it was a proven fact that the county’s voting machines could be programmed to flip ballots.The local resident who sued and his lawyer are widely expected to appeal. Supporters organized a $20-per-head fund-raiser on Saturday. The speakers included Mike Lindell, the chief executive of MyPillow, who continues to sell the false claim that Mr. Trump won the election.The venue for the fund-raiser? Friske Farm Market. More