In the first town hall meeting since he was one of sixteen “false electors” charged by Michigan’s Attorney General, Wyoming, Michigan mayor Kent Vanderwood faced multiple calls for his resignation while he faces criminal charges, WOOD NBC-8 in Grand Rapids reports.
Each one of the sixteen false electors is facing eight counts, including forgery and a specific charge of election forgery, a count similar to election fraud. The sixteen Trump supporters each signed a forged document claiming that they were the rightfully designated Michigan representative to the Electoral College assigned by the state legislature after the 2020 election representing the certified outcome of the election; that was a lie. The group signed the forged document and submitted a copy to the National Archives asserting the legitimacy of the document, a potential federal felony.
“His name is on the paper. You cannot deny that. This is a stain on this city, a stain on our state, and we must get back to some type of decency and civility in our government,” said an unnamed person who spoke at the meeting said. “It resulted in an insurrection against our government. Five people lost their lives due to this action that is perpetrated against this country. Our mayor has to be held accountable for his part in that. Each of us must be accountable for our silence in that. I ask this mayor to resign.”
“This man is a man of integrity. He is a man who absolutely loves this country, loves this constitution … and loves the Lord,” another commenter said, apparently unaware that if one “loves this constitution,” one respects it and follows it, even when his preferred candidate loses an election. “For the attorney general to come out with charges three years after in a seemingly pointed fishing expedition against those who might have a difficult viewpoint needs to be thought through. When we allow the political outrage to allow that then we are not allowing the system that is founded so I suggest we allow Kent Vanderwood as mayor.”