By Jon King / jking@whmi.com


UPDATE: Commissioner Helzerman has since responded to a request for comment, which is now included in the story.


A Livingston County Commissioner used his time at Monday’s meeting to further cast doubt on the legitimacy of the November 2020 election.

District 4 Commissioner Doug Helzerman used his time during the final Call to the Public to discuss his concerns about the election results. “There are different states in our union that are having audits of the election," said Helzerman.

He then continued by questioning what would happen if a sitting president, presumably referring to President Joe Biden, would be found to have not achieved the Constitutionally-mandated number of votes in the Electoral College in order to be elected. "We have never had these types of questions in our country at this point and the question is when we have a sitting president that has been elected by the Electoral College and if we find out that some of the supporting evidence of the Electoral College would bring our present president short of having that legally at the point in time that the electors cast their ballots, we don’t know exactly what to do, but it is going on. There are questions even in Michigan."

Helzerman finished up by insinuating the media was part of a conspiracy “keeping all of this information quiet” and then asked people to “pray for the country” because of “forces trying to divide our country.” He did not specify what forces he was referring to.

No other commissioners responded to Helzerman’s statement. However, his comments come just a month after a report by the Republican-controlled Michigan Senate Oversight Committee that concluded “citizens should be confident the results represent the true results of the ballots cast by the people of Michigan” while strongly recommending “citizens use a critical eye and ear toward those who have pushed demonstrably false theories for their own personal gain.” The committee is chaired by Sen. Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan, and includes Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton.

Despite repeated false statements by former President Trump and his supporters that the election was stolen, there has been no evidence presented that Biden’s win was anything but legitimate. Dozens of judges, including several appointed by Trump, have also thrown out various legal challenges citing the lack of evidence. In fact, a hearing was held in federal court in Detroit earlier this month to determine if attorneys pushing the conspiracy theories should face financial and legal sanctions for doing so without any evidence.

Meanwhile, Judy Daubenmier, chair of the Livingston County Democratic Party, called it “appalling” that an elected official would use a taxpayer-funded meeting to (quote) “propagate a lie whose sole purpose is to undermine our democracy in order to benefit his own political party.” She also called it “disappointing” that none of the other commissioners challenged Helzerman’s statement.

She further questioned the logic of Helzerman's statement in light of the fact that his re-election as a County Commissioner occurred in the very same election he is calling into question. “I’m not sure how Helzerman can claim the election in which he was elected was free and fair in his case, but rigged in the case of Joe Biden. If Joe Biden’s results in Michigan have to be thrown out, so do the results in Helzerman’s election and Democrat Bill Cowan should be representing District 4.”

WHMI reached out to Helzerman to further discuss his comments, to which he replied; "I cannot help it if Democrats are blind to the programing (sic) problems in the Dominion voting machines. It does not surprise me that they excuse the egregious abuse of correct processes at the TCF absentee voting center. One democrat commented if it (the voting process) is not broken, it doesn’t need to be fixed. It isn’t broken? What is the compassionate way to treat a politically blind person?"

His full response is posted below.