Deep in conspiracy country, a Michigan election clerk reconsiders retirement

• In Antrim County, epicenter of 2020 conspiracy theories, five candidates compete to replace retiring election clerk Sheryl Guy
• Victoria Bishop, endorsed by the local Republican Party, is proposing hand counts of ballots on Election Day
• But if Bishop wins, Guy says she’ll consider a write-in campaign to ‘do what’s best for this county’

Four years after a mistake by her office made northern Michigan an epicenter of 2020 voter fraud allegations, Antrim County Clerk Sheryl Guy isn’t on the ballot for re-election — and she doesn’t want to be.

Guy had been planning to retire this year even before the 2020 controversy, which led to years of threats and harassment, mostly from members of the Republican Party she had been a part of before loyalists to former President Donald Trump turned on her. 

But with the Aug. 6 primary just one week away, Guy says she is now giving serious thought to running a write-in campaign for the general election to “do what’s best for this county.”

Her decision, she said, will depend on the outcome of the Republican primary, and whether it is won by Victoria Bishop, a clerk candidate who is capitalizing on voting machine conspiracy theories by campaigning on a pledge to require hand counts of ballots each Election Day. 

“I wouldn't put Antrim County in that position of being stuck with somebody that might be crazy,” Guy told Bridge Michigan Monday, explaining why she may decide to re-enter the race.

The deeply conservative county became an unlikely focal point in the 2020 election after unofficial election results there falsely indicated Democrat Joe Biden won the county. Experts later found the mistake was caused by a failure to update tabulators to properly scan ballots that were redesigned when a candidate was added to a local race.

Guy and county elections officials corrected the result before certification to show Trump won the county with 61% of the vote, but the vitriol — and costly lawsuits — began pouring in anyway as Antrim became “ground zero” for conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems machines.

Among the litigation was a suit from conservative radio host "Trucker Randy” Bishop, Victoria Bishop’s husband, who sued Guy and other Antrim officials for up to $1 million, alleging they violated his constitutional rights by erasing information from voting machines, a claim the county denied. The lawsuit was eventually dismissed.

Victoria Bishop, who did not respond to a request for comment from Bridge, is now running a campaign to “restore election integrity in Antrim County.” 

Her priorities include cleaning up the county’s voter rolls and “hand counting every ballot cast at the end of each voting day, to make sure the numbers match the machine’s tape,” a time-consuming process that election experts say can lead to inaccurate results. 

If the tabulator count and hand count don’t match, “she's then going to ask the clerks to call for a forensic audit of the machine,” Randy Bishop said on his radio show in June.

In an Antrim Review candidate questionnaire, Victoria Bishop said she believes “we still have dead people and people who no longer live in Antrim County” on the voter rolls, promising that if elected, she would work with township and village clerks to remove them before the 2026 election. 

“I want the people of Antrim County to have confidence in our elections again,” she told the newspaper. 

Bishop’s race ‘to lose’

Also on the GOP ballot are former Bellaire treasurer and deputy clerk Cathy Odom, Kalkaska Public Schools human resource director David Hilliker Tucker, former Kalkaska deputy clerk Julie Woods and Bellaire resident Tammy Anne Rozgowski, a former Chippewa Valley Board of Education member who works in the Antrim County Prosecutor’s Office.

The county is peppered with bright yellow signs backing Bishop’s candidacy, and she’s earned an endorsement from the Antrim County Republican Party. 

But her biggest backer is arguably her husband, who has routinely touted his wife on his radio show and discussed working on her campaign.

On Monday, he said he'd be "putting signs out everywhere across Antrim County" and will soon be contacting voters who requested absentee ballots but had not yet returned them.

"I may actually get in the car and drive over and see them in person, knock on their doors," Randy Bishop said on air. "’Just wanted to come over and hand you a business card. This is her name, Victoria Bishop, she's running for Antrim County clerk.’"

Triston Cole, a former Republican state representative and Antrim County resident, said the five-way race is “Vicki’s to lose,” suggesting her voter outreach, heavy sign presence and GOP endorsements make her the frontrunner. 

But he acknowledged that it could still be anyone’s game, and said he hopes whoever wins the clerk race can help the county move past its 2020 reputation.

“We have an opportunity with whoever is elected to rebrand the office,” said Cole, who still hasn’t made a decision on who to support in the race. “I really don't want to see Antrim County in the headlines for problems with elections.” 

‘The buck stops at the top’

The groundswell of interest in this year’s Antrim County clerk election comes as no surprise to Antrim County Republican Party Chair Marvin Rubingh, who said the “big error” of 2020 has many voters fearing a repeat.

Comparing the situation to U.S. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle’s resignation after the assassination attempt on Trump, Rubingh said the issues may not have been Guy’s fault — but “the buck stops at the top.”

The county party has rallied behind Bishop to replace her, in part due to concerns about whether other Republican candidates on the ticket align with party values. 

Trump allies were not successful in finding evidence of fraud in Antrim County’s 2020 presidential election results, but not for lack of trying. Central Lake activist Bill Bailey and attorney Matthew DePerno — who is now running for Michigan Supreme Court — sued to demand a “forensic” audit. 

DePerno persuaded Circuit Court Judge Kevin Elsenheimer to allow a team of Trump-aligned technicians to examine local voting machines. Though election officials and academic experts debunked their report, Trump and his supporters cited it as evidence the equipment was corrupted. 

Guy, who previously told Bridge she no longer considers herself a Republican but is not a Democrat either, said she’s personally backing Tucker – the Kalkaska schools human resources director – as her successor, calling him “up for the challenge” of working elections. 

She praised Tucker’s background in financial management and technology and public administration, saying she does not think his campaign for clerk is politically motivated. 

Many area Democrats agree, calling Tucker the best option in a race with no Democratic candidates on the ticket.

“We have been very appreciative of the work of Sheryl Guy, both in her training and her leadership, and trying to correct the initial issue,” said Jim McKimmy, a member of the Antrim County Democratic Party. Tucker, he said, is “a detail person, and we need a person in that clerk position who will, in this day and age, follow details.” 

Woods told Bridge she deliberately avoided seeking Guy’s endorsement because she “did not want to be affiliated with somebody who was not capable of doing things properly for the election,” preferring to run on her own record of administering election results in Kalkaska. 

Odom, too, is pointing to her clerk credentials, telling prospective voters in a social media post that her work as a deputy clerk in Bellaire “has provided me with many of the skills necessary to serve all of you at this next level.” 

‘Taxpayers deserve better’

Should Bishop prevail, her plan to hand count ballots has some locals and outside observers concerned.

Longstanding Michigan law requires clerks to use a “uniform voting system,” which includes paper ballots tabulated by machines from 

Dominion, Hart or ES&S. Hand counts are typically limited to recounts triggered by unusually close results or good-faith candidate requests. 

Canton Township Clerk Michael Siegrist, board member of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks, said voting machines have a very low error rate compared to human error, which can occur when counters get tired or distracted after long days at the polls, and take far less time.

“I hope anybody who supports hand counting a ballot with 95 races on it gets the luxury of actually going through that process,” he quipped. “They can interact with their family four weeks later…after they finally get the election results and they're extremely inaccurate.”

It's part of the reason Guy, the current clerk, said she would be willing to launch a write-in candidacy if Bishop wins. 

She hopes to avoid a situation where the clerk runs afoul of state laws, invites further lawsuits, gets stripped of their duties or has the state step in to take over – which has happened elsewhere in recent years. 

“Why would I put myself through that? Because taxpayers deserve better,” Guy said of a potential write-in campaign. “They deserve honesty and integrity, and frankly, (the Bishops) just want to come in and try and probably just do what they want to do, or what they think they can do.”

Cole, the former state lawmaker, said he believes the clerk’s office needs a fresh perspective, preferably someone who can effectively communicate with people of all political stripes “and explain things to them without becoming rattled when they're challenged.” 

“You need somebody with a strong personality that can say, ‘Look, I understand what you're asking me to do here…however, state law says I cannot do that except in these situations,” Cole said. “Their number one job is to be well versed.”