GAINES TOWNSHIP, Mich. — After a man was charged in connection to alleged suspicious activity during the August primary, an audit at the precinct in question showed no impact on the results.
James Holkeboer was charged last week for falsifying returns/records and for using a computer to commit a crime, according to Kent County Prosecutor Chris Becker.
A witness reportedly saw Holkeboer inserting a flash drive into the Electronic Poll Book, which contains private information on all voters in the precinct.
Kent County Clerk Lisa Posthumus Lyons assures the Poll Book is not linked to any tabulators and is not connected to the internet.
“The electronic pollbook contains voter information including confidential personal identifying information," she said.
Posthumus-Lyons, who called the breach "extremely egregious and incredibly alarming," said it did not impact the results of three races election officials used as samples. Using paper ballots, they looked at absentee and in-person results for the Republican governor's race, the Republican county commission race, and the Democratic state representative race. All results came back within a negligible margin of error - the biggest difference found four more votes for a candidate than was recorded in the August primary.
“Discrepancies like these, minimal discrepancies, are not out of the ordinary. That comes with the territory," said Posthumus-Lyons. “I want our voters to have confidence in their elections, I want them to trust the process.”
Audits aren't typically undertaken after primary elections because of the short amount of time between primary and general elections, but Kent County typically conducts them every cycle anyways. Especially in a case where charges were issued, Posthumus-Lyons said she wanted to give voters enhanced confidence in the results.
“Based on our audit here, we can confirm that the breach that occurred in the precinct on the primary election night after the polls closed did not impact the outcome of the election or the election results here," said Posthumus-Lyons. “The most important thing right now is to make sure that we are doing everything we can to instill confidence and restore public trust.”
The Kent County Clerk's Office is working with the Kent County Sheriff's Office on the investigation. According to Posthumus-Lyons, they're "waiting for some additional evidence and reports to come back to determine the extent of the breach" and to determine if they'll need to notify any voters whose ballots or personal information were affected.
READ MORE: Kent Co. prosecutor charges election worker after alleged illegal activity
