Both Nessel and Benson urged voters to be vigilant against such misinformation, which they warned will likely become more prevalent as the November election nears. Clerks will begin mailing requested absentee ballots on Sept. 24.
Michigan — a battleground state that President Donald Trump narrowly won in 2016 in part due to less turnout for Hillary Clinton in heavily Democratic Detroit — allows voters to cast an absentee ballot for any reason, either by mailing it in, dropping it off or filling one out at a clerk’s office. Benson said voting absentee, including by mail, does not expose personal information any more than simply registering to vote does.
“We were not involved in this call,” Wohl said. “It’s no secret that we’re not fans of mail-in voting. But we’re not involved in this call in particular.”
He said Burkman got hundreds of mysterious calls to his cellphone in recent days, leading them to suspect “leftist pranksters” had been behind the robocall that he said they only learned of Thursday. Recipients of the robocall apparently saw a caller ID that is the same as Burkman’s cellphone, Wohl said.
“Clearly this was meant by somebody to make it look as if we had sent out this call,” he said, before adding that he did not think its content was racist.
In an email, Burkman called the situation “a joke” because “no one” would put his or her mobile number on a robocall. He said he and Wohl planned to file a $300 million defamation lawsuit against Benson next week, alleging she knows “full well” that neither he nor Wohl are involved.
Read More: Michigan officials decry robocall that dissuades mail voting | Govt-and-politics
