Michigan sheriff sought to seize multiple voting machines, records show
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[August 31, 2022]
By Peter Eisler and Nathan Layne
(Reuters) - A sheriff in Barry County,
Michigan, already under state investigation for alleged involvement in
an illegal breach of a vote-counting machine, sought warrants in July to
seize other machines in an effort to prove former President Donald
Trump’s claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election, documents reviewed
by Reuters showed.
The proposed warrants sought authorization to seize vote tabulators and
various election records from the offices of the Barry County and
Woodland Township clerks, the documents showed. The two jurisdictions
have not been previously identified as targets in the sheriff’s
investigation into suspicions that machines in the county were rigged to
siphon votes from Trump.
The warrants were submitted in July to the office of Barry County
Prosecuting Attorney Julie Nakfoor Pratt, a Republican, who told Reuters
she declined to endorse them because she felt the sheriff lacked
sufficient evidence to support his suspicions that the machines were
rigged.
Reuters obtained copies of the documents under a Freedom of Information
request filed with the prosecutor’s office.
The requests suggest Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, a Republican, was
seeking to broaden his investigation of alleged election fraud even as
he faced investigation from the state attorney general’s office.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Aug/31/images/ads/current/castlemanor_sda_FINANCIAL_2017.png)
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, has identified Leaf
as a target in a statewide investigation into alleged illegal breaches
of vote tabulators in at least three counties.
Nessel last month alleged Leaf was involved in the breach of a voting
machine taken without authorization in 2021 from Irving Township,
another jurisdiction in Barry County. Leaf has denied wrongdoing and
told Reuters that no one in his office was involved in improperly
accessing the machine. Leaf’s proposed warrants also included voting
machines from Irving Township.
Last month, Nessel requested appointment of a special prosecutor to
consider charges against Leaf and eight other targets in the state probe
because the list includes Matthew DePerno, the Republican nominee to
challenge Nessel for attorney general in November’s elections.
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![](../images/083122PIX/news_u57.jpg)
Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, from
Michigan listens to a speaker during a news conference in Las Vegas,
Nevada, U.S., July 12, 2022. REUTERS/Bridget Bennett
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2022/Aug/31/images/ads/current/2022%20Business%20Directory%20Cover%20lda%202022.png)
Leaf did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed
warrants.
Pratt, the prosecutor, told Reuters previously that she declined to
endorse the warrants because “I didn’t see evidence of a crime” in
the material Leaf provided in support of the requests. “I didn’t see
probable cause” for seizing voting equipment, Pratt added.
Barry County Clerk Pamela Palmer and Woodland Township Clerk Nancy
Stanton could not be reached immediately for comment. Palmer, A
Republican, told Reuters previously that the vote count in Barry
County was accurate and confirmed by multiple audits.
Leaf’s investigation has become a clarion call for adherents of
Trump’s disproven claims that he was robbed of reelection by
widespread voter fraud.
A member of the so-called “constitutional sheriffs” movement, which
holds that sheriffs have supreme law enforcement authority within
their counties, exceeding that of state and federal agencies, and
even the U.S. president, Leaf has appeared repeatedly at events
around the country organized by proponents of Trump’s rigged
election claims.
Reuters has previously reported that Leaf has been aided in his
investigation by key Trump allies, but his efforts to get access to
voting machines in the county have been blocked by state and federal
judges who said he failed to provide credible evidence to support
his claims that the equipment was rigged.
The state investigation into illegal breaches of voting equipment
concluded that criminal charges should be filed against Leaf for his
alleged role in helping a private investigator get access to the
Irving County vote tabulator, which was found to have been taken to
the Detroit area, broken open and examined by computer technicians
working in concert with key national figures backing Trump’s efforts
to overturn the 2020 election.
(Reporting by Peter Eisler and Nathan Layne; Editing by Jason Szep
and Jonathan Oatis)
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