Questions persist in break-in case

BY MARDI LINK

mlink@record-eagle.com

CROSS VILLAGE — Township Clerk Diana Keller was in office for two months last year when she said three men — one wearing a gun on his hip and a bulletproof vest over his sweatshirt — walked into the township hall asking for election equipment.

Keller said she wasn’t surprised to see Cross Village Township Trustee Howard Wood. He’d called a half hour prior asking to meet, though didn’t say why.

Keller said she didn’t know the other two, and remembers blurting, “I don’t think so,” when the men said they were there to back up data they believed was stored on the township’s ballot tabulator.

It was Jan. 14, 2021, Keller remembers being alone in the old Wadsworth Street schoolhouse that long ago was converted into township offices, when she said the men

arrived together in Wood’s van.

“One said he was a computer tech, the other one had the bulletproof vest on and he said, ‘I’ve got other things to do. Let’s just get it done with,’” Keller said. “He was like, ‘Get the machine out. We’ve got to get our information.’ Really, I was terrified.”

Keller said her first instinct was to call her brother, Stephen Keller, the township’s supervisor, but he was in the neighboring town, East Jordan, on an errand.

Her second instinct was to stall for time, she said.

Keller recalled telling the men the ballot tabulator was locked in a storage room and she wasn’t sure where the key was. Next she suggested they call Emmet County Clerk Suzanne Kanine to confirm the audit. Finally, Keller said she went into her office, ostensibly to look for the storage room key, and shut the door.

“I knew they were lying,” Keller said. “I knew they were trying to pull the wool over my eyes and I was fumbling around in my office trying to think, what can I do? I looked at my phone and the battery was almost dead. Then Howard yelled out, ‘Never mind, kiddo, somebody’s broken into this room.’” The storage room is down the hall from Keller’s office and she said she hadn’t noticed the door was ajar, the deadbolt out, the door handle damaged.

Keller said she urged the men to call police, which someone eventually did, but not before Keller said the men crowded around the tabulator, first examining the outer housing, then removing the internal tabulating computer. This computer also showed exterior signs of damage, an Emmet County Sheriff’s Department report states, though experts with the manufacturer, Election Systems & Software, would later determine the internal components were not breached.

“You need special tools to work on election equipment,” Keller said Thursday. “You’d think if they were really from the government they’d know that.”

A review of court documents, sheriff’s department reports, a deputy’s affidavit, Keller’s handwritten notes and interviews with witnesses by the Record-Eagle show how election-related conspiracy theories and misinformation contributed to a series of events in the remote northern Michigan community Jan. 14, 2021.

AN UNOFFICIAL GROUP, AN ‘OATH KEEPER,’ A BREAK-IN

Allan Coveyou, owner of a computer business south of Cross Village in Petoskey, said Friday backing up data is a common request in his line of work.

So when a woman named Tera Jackson called and said an official-sounding commission was looking into complaints about voter fraud logged with the U.S. Department of Defense, and she needed someone with computer skills to go to Cross Village and back up the township’s election data before it was “wiped clean,” Coveyou said he’d do it.

“Obviously, hindsight is 20/20,” Coveyou said. “This Tera person said she was part of the Election Integrity Committee,” which, Coveyou said, sounded legitimate.

Jackson told Coveyou he should have an “oath keeper” accompany him, a sheriff’s report states, who Jackson said should be an ex-law enforcement officer who could act as a witness.

The Anti-Defamation League identifies Oathkeepers as right-wing, antigovernment extremists. And federal authorities arrested the group’s founder, Stewart Rhodes, earlier this month on charges of seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Coveyou said he thought the term “oath keeper” was synonymous with “peace keeper” and called a friend who used to be a police officer.

“Supposedly, he was requested there as an oath keeper, that’s what our report says,” Sheriff Pete Wallin said Friday.

Coveyou didn’t share his friend’s full name, but confirmed the man was equipped with a sidearm and a bulletproof vest, though when told of Diana Keller’s recounting, said neither man intended to intimidate anyone or wrongly access protected election data.

Coveyou acknowledged the men were with Trustee Wood and said they called police after removing the tabulator from the storage room, taking out the computer and noting damage.

“It looked like an inside job,” Coveyou said, of the break-in, adding that no exterior doors appeared tampered with.

STORIES CHANGED LIKE ‘A GAME OF TELEPHONE’

Deputies received the first call from Cross Village about about 4 p.m., dispatch records show, and Deputy Mark Hazen arrived at about 6:45 p.m.

By then, more people were gathered in and around the township hall and Hazen asked Keller to collect everyone’s contact information.

“I passed around a sheet of paper, they wrote their own names out, then I went into the office and made a copy before I gave it to the officer,” Keller said. “I wanted to prove that these people were there. Because I knew it was illegal and the cop was really low key about it, like it was no big deal.”

Besides Wood, Coveyou, Keller and the deputy, the township’s previous clerk, Priscilla Joy Sweet, was there, as was Tiera Morse and her sister, Tawnya Morse.

The man with the sidearm didn’t sign the list, Keller said, and, she added, when Deputy Hazen asked the purpose of each person’s visit, their answers resembled a game of telephone.

Neither Wood, Sweet or Tera Jackson’s attorney, Robert Banner, returned calls seeking comment; Tawnya Morse was reached at work and said she couldn’t speak freely.

Tiera Morse said Friday she, like Coveyou, was at the township hall at Jackson’s request.

“All I know is that she heard from someone, I don’t know her source, that Cross Village Town Hall had been broken into and someone had done something with the voter machine,” Tiera Morse said, adding she was there to keep an eye out until police arrived.

Sheriff’s department reports state the Morse sisters, and other witnesses, told Deputy Hazen the sisters were there to help Sweet re-count ballots from the 2020 Presidential election.

“I don’t think it was about Trump,” Keller said. “I think they were trying to figure out a way to make it look like I didn’t win the election.”

Tiera Morse disputes this, reiterating she’s an acquaintance of Jackson’s and was there at her request.

Sheriff’s reports show Sweet told officers she was also in contact with Jackson; as was Wood.

Wood told officers he first met Jackson when she was putting up campaign signs for Rep. Jack Bergman and senate candidate John James, and he believed Jackson when she told him she was in contact with a Trump-allied attorney.

“Howard explained Tera informed him she worked for the Election Integrity Commission, and was under the supervision of Sidney Powell,” a sheriff’s department report states, of a Jan. 19, 2021 interview with Wood.

Powell is a New York attorney known for espousing conspiracy theories and who once worked with Trump attorney, Rudy Giuliani, on behalf of the former president’s failed election-challenging legal efforts.

CONSPIRACY THEORIES AND AN ARREST

Deputy Hazen, like Coveyou, initially believed the professed task of backing up data from the township’s voting tabulator, was genuine.

Then, records show, he conducted some internet searches.

“Through investigation, Deputy Hazen was able to determine that the ‘Election integrity Commission,’ is not a legitimate governmental agency,” according to an affidavit, filed March 11, 2021 in 90th District Court.

In 2017, former President Donald Trump did establish a similarly-named “Advisory Commission on Election Integrity,” but it was abruptly disbanded in 2018, amid criticism from voting rights advocates and a bipartisan outcry from state officials over privacy issues.

A warrant was issued in March 2021 in 90th District Court for Jackson on felony charges of fraud and unauthorized access of a computer, records show, though she was apparently not located until October.

Sheriff’s investigators consulted the FBI on the case, records show, and at least one agent made inquires though Wallin said when his office located Jackson, she was arrested.

A preliminary hearing is scheduled Wednesday in 90th District Court.

SMALL TOWNSHIP, BIG HEADACHE

The Kellers expressed frustration over what they characterized as a lack of communication from the Sheriff’s office.

Stephen Keller said township officials were never informed of Jackson’s arrest, for example, and Diana Keller said she believes there was more than one person involved in the break-in.

“They claimed there would be no further arrests and the case would be closed,” Diana Keller said, of the sheriff’s office. “I’ve never met Tera Jackson, she was not at the hall that afternoon and I think there were others involved.”

Wallin said his office completed a report, gave it to the Emmet County Prosecutor’s office and Jackson was the only one charged.

Prosecutor James Linderman did not return a call seeking comment Friday.

The Kellers said they worry if Jackson is offered a plea deal, it could obscure culpability of unnamed accomplices and stick the township with the nearly $5,000 bill for a new tabulator.

A hardship, the Kellers said, for a township of fewer than 300 year-round residents and a $100,000 annual budget.

The sheriff said he understood from voting equipment manufacturer ESS, the township’s ballot tabulator was still functional.

Stephen Keller said the township was advised to get a new one.

“You can’t have people wondering whether or not it’s valid,” Stephen Keller said. “Obviously that doesn’t go good.”

Diana is a Democrat, Stephen leans more Republican, and the siblings campaigned together on a platform of making small changes to improve the township.

Better record-keeping, for example, and addressing the small downtown’s drainage problems.

“It’s usually pretty low key here,” Stephen Keller said. “Not things you get calls for from any newspaper reporter.”

A spokesperson for Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson said her office was aware of the break-in but had no further comment.

Diana Keller said she submitted notes on what she observed Jan. 14, 2021, to the SOS’s Bureau of Elections. Also in evidence is a cellphone video, provided to law enforcement by Coveyou, documenting the men’s visit.

“It’s more than a year later and I’m still totally stunned,” Diana Keller said. “I never expected anything like this to ever happen in Cross Village.”

“And you know what the most ridiculous part is?” she said. “There’s no information stored on that tabulator. All it does is count ballots.”