Deleted from History: Inside the Hillsdale County Election Case That Could Shake Michigan

Case: People v. Stephanie Scott & Stefanie (Lambert) Junttila
Court: Hillsdale County Circuit Court
Testimony Dates: August 12–13, 2025

HILLSDALE, MI — The case of People v. Stephanie Scott & Stefanie Lambert began as a routine prosecution, at least in the eyes of the state. Former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott and her attorney, Stefanie Lambert, were charged by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel in May 2024 with multiple felony counts under Michigan election law. The allegations were serious: giving an outside consultant access to 2020 election equipment, refusing to comply with state election orders, and obstructing the administration of elections.

But after two days of testimony in an August 2025 Hillsdale County courtroom, the state’s narrative began to unravel.

Prosecutors framed Scott as a defiant public servant who ignored lawful commands from the Michigan Bureau of Elections. The defense countered that Scott was doing exactly what her oath required — preserving the 2020 election records to ensure transparency and protect vital election data.

The turning point came when the state’s own witnesses — the Michigan Bureau of Elections Director and the Hillsdale County Clerk — took the stand.

Under cross-examination, the Director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections acknowledged ordering the deletion of 2020 election data from the voting machines flash drive. He also admitted ordering Scott’s removal from her township clerk election duties, a clear abuse of authority.

The defense pressed the point: were these orders based on any Michigan statute, legal, or lawful authority? The Director’s answer was a quiet but stunning “No.” The directives were not grounded in law, but in internal administrative policy.

It was a moment that echoed through the packed courtroom: the man tasked with overseeing Michigan’s elections had just testified that his orders to erase an election’s data were not legally mandated.

The following day, the Hillsdale County Clerk — who served as Deputy Clerk at the time — admitted that he had no lawful authority to seize Adams Township’s voting machine or 2020 ballots. He further conceded that he used his official position to discourage other township clerks from lending Adams Township a spare voting machine for the November 2021 school millage election — an action that directly obstructed the township’s ability to conduct the vote and forced his unlawful actions onto the Adams Township Clerk under the guise of fulfilling his election integrity duties. Ultimately, as testified the Deputy Clerk, along with a few Adams Township officials — unbeknownst to the Adams Township supervisor and clerk — took the township’s election materials, which led to a search warrant for the missing tabulator being signed by the very judge now hearing this case.

When asked why election records weren’t preserved on flash drives, the County Clerk gave a reason that left many in the gallery shaking their heads: cost. Maintaining the data would require purchasing flash drives — at roughly ten dollars each.

Deleted from History

By the end of two days of cross-examination, the defense had laid out a chilling picture. Through the Director’s own orders, data from the 2020 election in every township across Michigan had been deleted — an act, the defense argued, carried out without lawful authority. The consequence for any clerk who refused? Removal from election duties and felony charges.

If the defense is right, Michigan didn’t just mishandle a single township’s election records — it deleted a chapter of the state’s electoral history. And if the prosecution is right, then the law clearly allowed such actions, even at the cost of removing an elected official from their duties and empowering Clerks across the State to violate their Constitutional oaths by any means necessary.

Either way, the trial has peeled back the curtain on an uncomfortable truth: the machinery of election administration in Michigan may be operating on rules that are not rooted in law.

If election records can be erased without lawful authority by one order and Clerks who follow unlawful orders, what else can be?

In liberty,
Vice Chair: Lance Lashaway
Hillsdale Conservatives.