“I would have loved to finish that recount because what it showed before it was stopped was there were very few problems,” Ms. Matuzak said. “My biggest fear now is that no matter what we do, there are going to be people out there who are never going to believe that it was a fair election.”
The Republicans
Norm Shinkle, 70, of Williamston, near Lansing, is an open supporter of Mr. Trump’s, volunteering for the campaign and even singing the national anthem at a rally for the president in Michigan last month.
A longtime politician in Michigan, he has served as a poll challenger in the past. His wife, Mary Shinkle, was a poll challenger this year at the TCF Center in Detroit, where absentee ballots were counted, and she filed an affidavit complaining about the tense environment there.
Mr. Shinkle, who was appointed to the board in 2008, said that he had some concerns about the vote tally in Wayne County, especially in Detroit, and that an investigation there would be acceptable. He, too, said he had been receiving hundreds of phone calls and emails from people pressuring him either to certify or not to certify the results. He said he had not heard from Mr. Trump or his campaign.
Mr. Shinkle said his time as a judge on the Michigan Tax Tribunal had taught him that you can’t make up your mind until you see both sides of a case. He said that was what he planned to do.
“I’m just focused on Monday and reviewing all the information for the meeting,” he said. “No one knows how the vote is going to go. But I just have to do the best that I can based on what’s ethical and legal.”
Aaron Van Langevelde, 30, of Charlotte in mid-Michigan, is the unknown quantity on the board. Appointed in 2018, he has declined interview requests from The New York Times and other news outlets.