FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
News from Progress Michigan
October 18, 2021
Contact: Sam Inglot, 616-916-0574, sam@progressmichigan.org
Did Wayne County Canvassers Lie in FOIA Response?
Monica Palmer alludes to text message from district GOP chair
MICHIGAN – After Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers tried to disenfranchise Detroit voters in 2020, Progress Michigan filed a FOIA request seeking communications between board members and other officials associated with the Michigan Republican Party or the Trump campaign. Both Monica Palmer and William Hartmann failed to respond to the request and the county claimed that “no such records exist.”
But in a recent media interview, Monica Palmer has publicly referenced a text message from the 11th district GOP chair in which he called her a traitor for voting to certify the election.
“Not only does this comment prove that Monica Palmer failed to properly respond to our FOIA request, but it also shows what we’ve suspected all along: Monica Palmer was under pressure from GOP operatives to suppress the voices of Detroit voters,” said Lonnie Scott, executive director of Progress Michigan. “Monica Palmer and William Hartmann’s refusal to do their jobs as canvassers was and is unacceptable, and the text message Palmer alluded to shows that the rot in the Republican Party goes far beyond them. Now that Palmer has made it abundantly clear that communications like this did happen and records of them do exist, we urge her and William Hartmann to comply with open records laws and fulfill the FOIA request we submitted months ago—because Michigan voters, especially Detroiters, deserve real answers. Progress Michigan will not stop until we obtain all of the documents we requested.”
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