LANSING, Mich. (MIRS News) – The Michigan Board of State Canvassers unanimously certified the state’s election results Monday amid a smattering of outspoken candidates and election deniers who uncorked repeated claims of fraud and conspiracy during a longer-than-necessary meeting.

Former U.S. Taxpayers Party gubernatorial candidate Donna Brandenburg and former Secretary of State candidate Kristina Karamo were the highest-profile names to go before the unsympathetic canvassers, who had two individuals ejected by Michigan State Police for not ending their tirade when repeatedly asked.

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“I was taught (that) losing gracefully is just as important as winning gracefully and I think we did see that this cycle. The vast majority of people accepted the results. They conceded. They offered their support moving forward,” said Board of State Canvassers Chair Tony Daunt.

Daunt said he was confident the election results were correct, and the 83 county boards of canvassers did their job correctly in counting the nearly 4.5 million votes cast.

The certification of the Nov. 8 mid-term election was the only item on the agenda. After that was completed, it started the 48-hour clock at 11:57 a.m. on any planned recounts.

Bureau of Elections Director Jonathan Brater told the Board there was a tremendous effort from clerks around the state.

He said Grand Rapids and Sterling Heights had nearly 100% of their poll books balanced, and Wayne County had nearly 90% balanced poll books.

“That is a huge stride forward and testament to the great work of those clerks and their staff,” Brater said.

He said there were large improvements to the release of unofficial election data and the accuracy of those numbers.

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However, he said errors do happen, but any of those are quickly caught in the canvass of the election and corrected.

“I think our clerks this year at both municipal and county levels did an excellent job of double checking all this and we didn’t see many instances of unofficial reporting error,” Brater said.

Brandenburg was the first to speak before the Board. She quickly condemned the election as fraudulent.

“I can tell you right now, I am not thankful for the time that was put into this election,” said Brandenburg, who received 0.4% of the election total.

She told the Board that if any of the clerks or election workers were threatened that was the fault of the Board of State Canvassers, “because they were set up as a scapegoat.”

She then told the Board the anyone who touched the election would be “guilty of treason.”

This led to several calls and the first warning from Daunt to the crowd about being respectful, especially a man in the front row.

“I am asking you to please stop, or I will have you removed,” Daunt said.

Brandenburg then called the Board “the enemy of the people.”    Her refrain of fraud would be reflected in the public comment that came after the Board certified the election with a 4-0 vote.

Karamo was fourth. She came after a Michigan Democratic Party representative who asked the Board to certify the vote.

“Our freedom is hanging in the balance here. Our elections are the only way that we the people maintain control of our government,” she said.

She claimed the Secretary of State does not maintain the qualified voter file and put forth a conspiracy theory that a clerk in Ann Arbor was registering non-Michigan residents to vote. She said the same clerk was accepting absentee ballots until 11 p.m. the night of the election.

“We can clearly see the fraud in our election, the systemic corruption in our election system touches all races. It doesn’t just touch statewide races,” Karamo said.

Daunt said if the allegations put forward by any of the people are true that they should be going to the police with a case.

“If you have an issue with policy or the way things are done there are avenues that do not involve baseless allegations,” he said.

After many interruptions during the meeting, Daunt was forced to eject two people from the meeting. The first was man who was warned several times. He was escorted from the meeting by three Michigan State Police officers after several warnings. While the officers removed the man, they called for a recess.

“Once that gentleman was removed, it seemed to have calmed down quite a bit,” Daunt said.

The man returned with a bullhorn later during public comment and yelled in front of the building, but what he was saying was muffled.

The woman in the argument in the video also left on her own during public comment, but not before yelling at the Board about Communism and a conspiracy theory regarding the World Economic Forum prior to the end of the meeting.

“I think that it’s unfortunate that type of stuff takes hold in people’s minds that that they think we have an ability to do anything about it,” Daunt said.

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Brater and board member Jeannette Bradshaw discussed how elections are transparent and people have the right to go before the Secretary of State or their clerk to get the results of the elections. Brater said all the information needed regarding elections is on the Michigan government website.

Daunt said there is a bipartisan problem with people being unable to accept the outcome of elections and feed into distrust for a short-term political gain.

“That is dangerous to the system. That feeds lies into people’s heads, and it creates problems where people have no trust in how things have turned out,” Daunt said.