Official photo of Michigan state Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown) (Source: Michigan House of Representatives)

Michigan state Rep. Jamie Thompson (R-Brownstown) has a history of rejecting the results of the 2020 presidential election and spreading misinformation, even to this day. The incumbent is seeking reelection in Michigan’s 28th House District.

Thompson was one of the many Michigan lawmakers who vocally rejected President Joe Biden’s victory, naming election integrity one of her main campaign issues. 

She has also been a representative of Michigan Leadership Group, a nonprofit organization that has posted about election fraud on multiple occasions, saying any lawmaker who “fails to initiate a forensic audit and then send electors to DC could be, and WILL BE, individually sued.” The group’s Facebook account also posted an article claiming “voter fraud happened.” 

She has also had involvement with an election-denying group called Patriot Approved. The group attempted to recruit 5,000 Republican poll workers “to ensure honest elections in 2022.”

In response to a post on X by Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) regarding the state’s election results, Thompson made unfounded claims about the late Republican election official William Hartmann. 

“It’s too bad that then Board of Canvasser Bill Hartman is deceased and unable to share his recollection of the events of that night. Because he shared with me the threats against his life and the fact that he was pressured to certify an election he was not comfortable certifying,” Thompson wrote in a post on X in December 2023, two years after Hartmann died. 

Hartmann and another Republican canvasser, Monica Palmer, initially refused to certify the election results in Wayne County following the election. According to The New York Times, they “were concerned about small discrepancies between the number of votes cast in some precincts and the number of people precinct officials recorded as having voted.” 

Both Hartmann and Palmer did eventually vote to certify the ballots, but they also demanded the results be audited. Biden beat Trump by over 330,000 votes in Wayne County, a margin of victory that would not have been affected by the few hundred disputed votes that the Republican members pointed out. 

Regardless, all claims of fraud in the state were debunked and proven false following an investigation by the state’s Senate Oversight Committee in June 2021. 

“After innumerable hours over many months, watching, listening, and reading both in-person testimony and various other accounts, I am confident in asserting that the results of the November 2020 General Election in Michigan were accurately represented by the certified and audited results,” Republican state Sen. Ed McBroom said in a statement.

Thompson is still seen to be rejecting the results as recently as last month. She reposted an article on Facebook about a lawsuit brought by former President Donald Trump against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) over allowing certain federal offices to be used as voter registration locations. 

In a statement, Republican National Committee chairman Michael Whatley referred to this action as an attempt to “manipulate our country’s most important election.”