u/Correct_Assistant_36

>Michigan Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers is facing scrutiny over his campaign's ties to a church where three leaders have been convicted of child sex crimes.

... According to the Midland Daily News, "Nearly three weeks after a faith coalition leader with ties to Mark Barclay’s Living Word Church resigned from Mike Rogers’ U.S. Senate campaign, a second coalition leader with ties to the organization appears to still be on the campaign. The Rogers campaign has received criticism for not speaking publicly about the volunteer coalition leaders’ ties to the Midland County church, where three leaders over the past two years were convicted of sex crimes involving children."

The first such leader, Tim Cross, resigned from the campaign in a lengthy statement that went out of its way not to mention the scandal at Living Word.

"The resignation came after an open letter from two former Living Word Church members published in the Midland Daily News called for the Rogers campaign to cut ties with Cross and coalition member Brian Ford, pastor of Living Word Church of Ludington," said the report. "The letter mentioned former Living Word youth leader James Randolph, who was sentenced in March to 25-40 years in prison for sexually abusing a child and had a prior assault conviction from 1984 before coming to the church."

The letter writers, Dana and Dan Stahl, slammed Rogers specifically, saying, “Mike Rogers is still silent and Michigan needs to hear from him directly. He has refused to acknowledge these concerns for over a month, and Brian Ford, who supported James Randolph during his trial, kept him on his own board of directors and is still on Rogers’ campaign leadership team.”

Republican U.S. Senate hopeful Mike Rogers said recently he wants off-duty or retired police officers to be recruited as poll watchers in Detroit ― a move that would revive a strategy historically used to scare or intimidate voters of color.

The Detroit News obtained an audio recording of Rogers, a former seven-term congressman from White Lake Township, speaking to the Kalamazoo County GOP on April 17, where he told those gathered that he was working with the Republican National Committee in relation to voter integrity efforts.

"We called the RNC early and said, 'Hey, if we're going to do this again, I don't want to wake up at, you know, go to bed at 2 a.m. a winner and wake up at 4 a.m. a loser. I'm kind of done with that,'" said Rogers.

"And I've been telling them, 'You know what, let's put police officers — retired or off-duty police officers— as our poll watchers in Detroit.' Because, go ahead: Try to intimidate them. Please."

Rogers, a former FBI agent, went on to say they're working to recruit such officers and acknowledged that the officers wouldn't be allowed to wear their uniforms as poll watchers.

"We're trying to find them. I mean, they wouldn't be able to wear their uniforms, but they would, you know, all you got to do is open your jacket and you see the badge on the belt, right?" Rogers added.

... In his remarks to the Kalamazoo County GOP, Rogers also repeated his claims about a van showing up in Detroit early on the morning after Election Day with ballots. Rogers, in remarks over the last year, has said that the van of ballots "swung" his 2024 race against Democrat Elissa Slotkin, which he lost by about 19,000 votes.

... Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum, a Democrat, said Rogers was parroting a myth about absentee voter ballots that arrive at the local clerk’s office or in drop boxes up until 8 p.m. local time on Election Day, then have to be received and logged in, have each signature checked and audited before they are sent to the Absent Voter Counting Board to be processed.

... She called Rogers' comments about recruiting off-duty police officers "concerning" but suggested that clerks like Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey "will not stand for the kind of voter intimidation that Rogers is suggesting."

... If Mike Rogers does not want to lose because of the legitimate votes of qualified, registered voters in the City of Detroit, I would recommend spending less time trying to negate their votes and more time trying to speak to their issues," Byrum said. "But he is starting off from behind when he tries to intimidate and disenfranchise the city with the largest concentration of people of color in the state."