Engler, Blanchard lead bipartisan group seeking to uphold and defend democracy in Michigan

Former Gov. John Engler (left) and former Gov. Jim Blanchard (right) | Getty Images and Andrew Roth photos

Two former Michigan governors are among a bipartisan group of politicians working to foster public confidence in the nation’s election process.

Former Michigan Gov. John Engler, a Republican, former Gov. Jim Blanchard, a Democrat joined with Republican former U.S. Rep. Mike Bishop and Democratic former Lt. Gov. John Cherry on Thursday to announce the launch of the Democracy Defense Project in Michigan.

“As people who love our state and have served our state and served the vote, we resent the fact that people could sit down at the end of some barstool and make a joke about our elections,” said Blanchard. “Elections are too important, and all the people who work on them are the anchors of our democracy, and we need to thank them and protect them.”

Blanchard noted Michigan’s system of 83 county clerks, overseeing the work of 1,500 local clerks, makes the idea of election fraud hard to square with reality.

That was a theme Engler also picked up on.

“I mean, 1,500 plus local clerks out there across the state. You’d have to be pretty amazing,” he said, referring to the idea of a mass conspiracy. “And before people start fretting about the process and saying somehow they’ve been treated unfairly, or something is to their dislike, work hard. Get your votes out. Get your candidates out.”

Engler, Blanchard, Bishop and Cherry will serve on the Michigan Board of Directors of Democracy Defense Project, a national organization of former elected officials and leaders from Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin working to “defend the transparency, safety, security and validity of our nation’s electoral system” in the face of an “erosion of faith in our democracy” that puts it at grave risk.

Bishop said that he and his three colleagues are an example of Republicans and Democrats who have spent a lot of time passionately disagreeing over politics and policy solutions, but underlining it all is a basic faith in the power of democracy.

“Michiganders are frankly fed up with the divisiveness and the polarization, not just in the halls of Congress, but across our society as a whole,” he said. “I believe that our country is at a crossroads, and … I think it’s a big mistake to relitigate the results of the previous election. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m so passionate about this organization.”

When asked how the group planned to accomplish their mission, Cherry referred to it as “an information task, primarily,” saying he planned to be available to various media outlets to discuss the importance of bipartisan cooperation.

Blanchard was more specific, saying they would all work to quickly confront anyone trying to fan the flames of election conspiracies.

“When somebody surfaces with a claim the election is rigged or preordained or not accurate or can’t be trusted, whether they do that tomorrow or they do it the day after the election, we’re going to push back vigorously,” he said. “We are not going to tolerate any nonsense here. Our state and our processes are too sacred in terms of voting and democracy to let anyone undermine them.”

Engler said the lack of faith in elections is not just about the presidency, but has now filtered down to the local level.

“Lots of elections have been lost, and people who’ve lost those have been unhappy. They do silly things. There was a fellow over in Ottawa County [who] lost the primary for a county commission seat by over a 1,000 votes, and he wanted to have a recount. I mean, it’s just preposterous,” he said.

That case involved Ottawa County Commissioner Roger Belknap, who believed “fraud or errors were committed” by precinct election inspectors during the August primary. The subsequent recount confirmed Belknap’s loss and actually added five votes to his opponent’s tally.

Engler also noted that even when there are errors, the system is designed to quickly catch and correct them as in the case of Antrim County’s results in the 2020 election that briefly showed President Joe Biden beating former President Donald Trump in the predominantly Republican county.

The mistake, which was due to human error, was quickly corrected and had no bearing on the election. However, it was seized upon by Trump and his allies in an effort to spread baseless conspiracy theories and cast doubt on the legitimacy of the election, resulting in lawsuits, all of which were eventually dismissed .

“ I used to represent part of Antrim County while I was in the state Senate,” said Engler. “I mean, good people up there. They just transposed the numbers. They caught the error, corrected it, but not before lots of people got pretty crazy over it and spread a lot of misinformation.”

That misinformation was at the heart of Trump’s attempts to not only cast doubt on the nationwide results of the 2020 election, but also his culpability in trying to subvert the Constitution with the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection attempt aimed at halting the Electoral College process that confirmed Biden as the winner.

With Trump continuing to push his false narrative of fraud in not only the 2020 election, but also this year’s balloting, Bishop was asked about his role as general counsel for the Michigan Republican Party, and how that informed his role in the Democracy Defense Project.

“The Republican Party that I am serving with right now is under the leadership of former Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who has done a very good job in trying to unify the Republican Party behind a common vision,” said Bishop. “And I think it’s moving it away from, very much away, from what it was before. We had a group of individuals that assumed control over the party that did not have the same vision and believe in the same platform as the Republican Party that most of us know.”

Bishop was referencing the leadership fight within the Michigan Republican Party that led to Hoekstra replacing former Chair Kristina Karamo, who vociferously echoed Trump’s falsehoods of a massive election fraud and indulged in other conspiracy theories .

While Hoekstra was a former ambassador under Trump who courted controversy , Bishop said his role in the state party would not override his duty to the nation.

“I’m a conservative by political nature, that’s my political philosophy. But I will tell you that I will defend the Constitution. I will defend the rule of law, no matter what I do, and that’s my No. 1 objective as a part of this organization.”

All four members of the group expressed the hope that the mere example of people with different political ideologies being able to come together on fundamental issues like democracy will help, even in a small way, encourage the public to put faith in their country over faith in any particular political party.

“I’ve had disagreements with Mike Bishop and John Engler both,” said Cherry. “But if people sit back and they understand that those disagreements occurred, but they see us working together, they say, ‘What’s up? These two people who have fought over issues in the past are now in agreement. There must be something to this.’”

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