Reconsideration Denied: The Clerk Was Charged for Crimes the County Clerk Admitted To

Adams Township, the Warrant Without Evidence, and the Prosecution That Should Have Never Happened

THE HILLSDALE CONSERVATIVES
Truth • Liberty • Local Stewardship
Hillsdale County, Michigan • June 17, 2026 • 2¢

The State asked the court to reconsider.

The court said no.

On June 16, 2026, Judge Sara S. Lisznyai denied the State’s Motion for Reconsideration in the criminal cases against former Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott and Stefanie Juntilla.

The order is short.

The meaning is not.

The State had another opportunity to justify what it had done. Another opportunity to save a prosecution that should have never been brought. Another opportunity to explain why an Adams Township clerk was charged while the conduct at the center of the case was admitted to by Hillsdale County Clerk Abe Dane.

The court was not persuaded.

Now the clock starts.

Forty-two more days.

Forty-two more days for the State to decide whether it wants to keep dragging this case forward. Forty-two more days before the remaining misdemeanor charge, the one passed along from district court to circuit court, should return to district court to be ceremonially dismissed.

And when that happens, Hillsdale County will still owe the public an answer.

Why was Stephanie Scott charged for conduct the county clerk admitted to?

Prior coverage: Not Guilty: The Witch Hunt Collapsed. Now Hillsdale Must Answer.

A Judge Finally Stood on Law

Before going further, credit should be given where credit is due.

Judge Sara S. Lisznyai appears to be the first elected official in this entire tragedy, other than Stephanie Scott herself, to stand on the law and carry out her duty in the face of overwhelming institutional pressure.

That should not be rare.

But in Hillsdale County, apparently it is.

Stephanie Scott was an elected township clerk. Her duty was to secure the election records of Adams Township and protect the lawful authority of her office. She stood where she was supposed to stand.

For that, she was threatened.

For that, she was raided.

For that, she was charged.

For that, she was publicly treated like a criminal while the actual unlawful conduct admitted in the record pointed back toward Hillsdale County Clerk Abe Dane.

Then, after years of criminal prosecution, after the State’s theory collapsed, after the State asked the court to reconsider, Judge Lisznyai stood on the law and said no.

That deserves recognition.

Two elected officials stood where the Constitution required them to stand.

Stephanie Scott, who tried to secure her township’s election.

Judge Sara Lisznyai, who refused to rescue a failed prosecution.

That is two.

Out of how many?

How many county officials?

How many state officials?

How many law enforcement officials?

How many commissioners?

How many judges?

How many elected representatives had the power to ask basic questions and instead chose silence?

The tragedy of Adams Township is not only that an innocent township clerk was prosecuted.

The tragedy is that nearly every public official with the power to stop it, question it, investigate it, or expose it chose not to.

They chose complacency.

They chose the prosecution.

They chose the county clerk.

They chose the story.

They chose silence.

And silence, in the face of a false prosecution, is not neutrality.

It is participation.

Prior coverage: The Real Scandal in Hillsdale Was Never Stephanie Scott

The Warrant Without Evidence

A warrant is not supposed to be a government permission slip.

It is not supposed to issue because a state official asks nicely. It is not supposed to issue because the political winds are blowing in a convenient direction. It is not supposed to issue because a township clerk has become inconvenient.

A warrant is supposed to be supported by evidence.

So here is the fair question:

Why did Judge Stiverson sign a warrant when the evidence did not establish the crime being alleged?

Was the judge given the full record?

Was the judge told that the county clerk had admitted he had no authority to seize the ballots and tabulator?

Was the judge told that the State’s own election director had described the electronic poll book deletion issue as policy, not statute?

Was the judge told the difference between an election policy dispute and a criminal act?

Or was the warrant signed because state officials wanted it signed?

These are not radical questions.

These are basic questions citizens are allowed to ask of their government.

If a warrant can be signed without evidence against a township clerk, it can be signed without evidence against anyone.

Prior coverage: Transcripts of a Broken Republic: Michigan on the Brink

Prior coverage: The Tabulator That Was Never Missing

Where Was/Is the Sheriff?

And where was/is the Hillsdale County Sheriff?

That question cannot be avoided.

The Sheriff was not some distant observer reading about this case in the newspaper years later. He was informed by the Adams Township Supervisor. He was aware State Police were conducting a raid under a warrant that lacked evidence establishing the alleged crime. He knew, or should have known, that a local township clerk was being accused of criminal conduct tied to actions actually being taken by the county clerk.

So where was he?

Where was the county’s chief law enforcement officer when an innocent township clerk was being falsely accused?

Where was the Sheriff when the county clerk, Abe Dane, admitted he had no authority to seize and destroy election materials?

Where was the Sheriff when the State Police acted on a warrant that should have raised immediate constitutional and lawful concerns?

Where was the Sheriff when local citizens needed someone in authority to stop and ask whether the law was being followed?

The Sheriff’s job is not to protect the county establishment.

His job is to protect the law.

And when the law is being bent against one citizen to protect another official, silence becomes part of the story.

Another county understood that immediately.

When Stephanie Scott later presented election-security concerns in St. Joseph County, officials there answered a question Hillsdale County has avoided for years: if statutes were violated, they should be investigated.

Exactly.

So why were they not investigated in Hillsdale?

Prior coverage: St. Joseph County: When a Real Sheriff and Clerk Answer Questions

The County Clerk’s Admission

At the center of this case sits a fact Hillsdale County officials do not want to confront.

Hillsdale County Clerk Abe Dane admitted he had no authority to seize the ballots and tabulator from Adams Township.

That should have changed everything.

If the removal, control, custody, or handling of election materials was the problem, then the official who admitted unauthorized action should have been the subject of investigation.

That official was not Stephanie Scott.

That official was Abe Dane.

Yet the township clerk was charged.

The county clerk was protected.

That inversion is the scandal.

The public was told this case was about election integrity. But election integrity does not mean charging a township clerk while ignoring the county clerk’s admitted violation of authority.

Election integrity does not mean pretending policy is criminal law.

Election integrity does not mean raiding a township, signing warrants without evidence, and then acting confused when citizens ask who authorized it.

Election integrity means the law applies equally.

That did not happen here. Everyone should be asking why.

The Commissioners Chose Silence

The Hillsdale County Board of Commissioners cannot pretend this is someone else’s problem.

The county clerk is a county official.

The commissioners have constitutional and institutional authority. They have the ability to demand answers. They have the ability to request an investigation. They have the ability to act when election integrity is placed at risk by the admitted conduct of a county officer.

Instead, they have chosen silence.

They refused to act after the Adams Township matter exposed the danger.

Then Fayette Township happened.

Once again, election law was violated. Once again, the county clerk was involved. Once again, citizens raised lawful concerns. Once again, the response from the system was not accountability.

It was pressure.

Lawrence Peter of the Hillsdale County Election Commission put the Fayette Township problem in writing. He named the statute. He identified the concern. He asked for review. He requested that the issue be placed into the official record and referred to proper authorities.

Then came the county attorney’s answer.

Not a clean legal explanation showing the outside appointment was lawful.

Not proof that HB 5717 was already law.

Not a public investigation.

Pressure.

The same kind of pressure Stephanie Scott had faced for standing on the lawful authority of her office.

That should alarm every voter in Hillsdale County.

When people who ask for election law to be followed are threatened, while the officials violating election law remain protected, the public is no longer looking at mistakes.

The public is looking at a pattern.

Prior coverage: They Knew

Prior coverage: Sworn Admissions and the County Commissioners’ Duty

Prior coverage: Notice Given, Record Made: Why Hillsdale County Commissioners Are Now Accountable

Lansing Moves to Legalize the Problem

And now the same election-law problem that helped produce the Adams Township tragedy is being carried to Lansing.

House Bill 5717 does not appear out of nowhere.

It appears during the Fayette Township scandal.

It appears after the Adams Township scandal.

It appears after Hillsdale County Clerk Abe Dane admitted limitations in current law.

It appears after Stephanie Scott was prosecuted for standing against the very kind of election-administration arrangement that Lansing is now being asked to authorize.

That is the point.

Current Michigan law required a township board, when the township clerk and deputy clerk were unavailable, to appoint a qualified person who was a registered elector of that township.

That was the law when these disputes arose.

Not an accredited contractor from somewhere nearby.

Not the county clerk or outside township/city clerk.

Not a county-arranged workaround.

A qualified person who was a registered elector of the township.

Now Representative Jennifer Wortz and Representative Jay DeBoyer have sponsored legislation to change that. HB 5717 would allow townships to contract with an accredited individual to perform election-law duties when the township clerk is absent or unavailable.

Set aside, for one moment, the policy argument going forward.

Ask the obvious question.

Why is Lansing changing the law now?

If the old law already allowed what happened in Hillsdale County, why does the law need to be amended?

If county officials already had authority to arrange outside election administrators for townships, why is the Legislature being asked to create that authority?

If Stephanie Scott was wrong to object, why is tomorrow’s law being written to authorize the kind of conduct she objected to yesterday?

This is not merely legislation.

It is after-the-fact legislative cover.

It is an effort to take the disputed conduct that helped destroy an innocent township clerk and convert it into a lawful procedure for the future.

Tomorrow’s law cannot erase yesterday’s violation. Although that has become Hillsdale Counties signature response to elected officials violating the very laws and rules they were elected and swore to uphold.

But it can help officials pretend the violation was always just a policy disagreement. Once their prosecutions fail.

Source: HB 5717 bill status and sponsors

Source: HB 5717 bill text

Prior coverage: Election Manipulation LLC

The Excuse: No One Wants to Be Clerk

The excuse being offered is familiar.

People no longer want to serve as township clerks. Rural townships are struggling. Election duties have become too difficult, too stressful, too technical, and too burdensome.

There is truth in that, mostly manufactured truth.

Clerks are overworked.

Small townships do struggle.

Election administration has become more complicated.

But the answer to a vacant clerk’s office is not to strip election control away from townships and normalize outside administration of local elections.

The answer is to strengthen township clerk offices.

Train deputies.

Support lawful succession.

Improve pay where needed.

Fill vacancies properly.

Preserve the constitutional and statutory authority of the local office.

The answer is not to wait until officials violate the law, prosecute the person who objects, threaten those who ask questions, and then send the county clerk to Lansing to support a bill making their violations of the law, lawful.

That is not reform.

That is the definition of a cover-up.

WILX reported that supporters of HB 5717 framed the issue around rural clerks quitting under heavy workloads, low pay, and controversy surrounding issues like solar farms, data centers, and election scrutiny.

That may explain the political sales pitch.

It does not answer the legal problem.

Source: WILX: Michigan bill would allow townships to hire outside election officials when clerk seat is vacant

The Family and Faction Problem

This legislation is also not moving through a political vacuum.

Representative Jennifer Wortz is Hillsdale’s own state representative. Her brother, Brent Leininger, is a Hillsdale County Commissioner. Leininger has been central to local Republican Party disputes involving precinct delegate elections, party recognition, and the unlawful actions that repeatedly intersect with the Hillsdale County Clerk’s office.

That matters because the public is being asked to believe this is all neutral.

Neutral legislation.

Neutral election administration.

Neutral county silence.

Neutral attorney memos.

Neutral prosecution.

Neutral threats.

Neutral inaction.

But the same names keep appearing.

The same offices keep appearing.

The same factional interests keep appearing.

The same county clerk keeps appearing.

And every time citizens ask for the law to be followed, the answer is either silence, pressure, prosecution, or a rule change.

Adams Township exposed the problem.

Fayette Township repeated it.

HB 5717 seeks to normalize it.

The people of Hillsdale County should not miss what is happening.

First, a township clerk was punished for standing on election law.

Then, a county canvasser was threatened for asking whether election law had been followed.

Now, Lansing is being asked to change the law so the next violation looks like procedure.

That is the pattern.

Break the law.

Threaten the objector.

Protect the official.

Change the rule.

Call it reform.

Source: FOX 47: Hillsdale Republican Rift Moves to Federal Court

Prior coverage: Violating Rules/Laws? Just Change Them.

How Many Times?

How many people have to be threatened before the county commissioners act?

How many people have to be charged with conduct tied to the county clerk before the Sheriff acts?

How many elections have to be placed at risk before the county admits there is a problem?

How many citizens have to ask for the law to be followed before local government stops treating them like enemies?

How many times does Abe Dane get to be at the center of an election controversy before someone in authority says enough?

Adams Township was not enough.

Fayette Township was not enough.

The admission of no authority was not enough.

A warrant without evidence was not enough.

A failed prosecution was not enough.

The court denying reconsideration was not enough.

So what, exactly, will be enough?

The Sheriff, the Judge, and the Commissioners All Owe Answers

This is bigger than one prosecutor.

It is bigger than one judge.

It is bigger than one sheriff.

It is bigger than one county clerk.

This is about whether Hillsdale County still has a government that recognizes limits on its own power.

The judge owes the public confidence that warrants are not signed merely because government officials ask for them.

The Sheriff owes the public an explanation for his inaction when he knew that a township clerk was being targeted for conduct tied to the county clerk.

The commissioners owe the public action, not silence.

At minimum, the Board of Commissioners should formally request an outside investigation into the conduct of the county clerk, the warrant process, the Adams Township seizure, the Fayette Township election, and the pattern of threats directed at people who ask for election law to be followed.

That is the minimum.

Not a press release.

Not another attorney memo.

Not another round of institutional excuses.

An investigation.

Forty-Two More Days

The State lost.

Then the State asked for reconsideration.

Then the State lost again.

Now the appeal clock runs.

Forty-two more days.

Forty-two more days for the State to decide whether it intends to keep dragging this disgrace forward.

Forty-two more days until the remaining misdemeanor charge, the charge that was passed from district court into circuit court, returns to the district court where it should be ceremonially dismissed.

And when it returns, it will return to Judge Stiverson.

The same Judge Stiverson who signed the warrant that allowed this tragedy to take place.

The same judge whose signature opened the door for State Police to raid a township clerk under a warrant unsupported by evidence establishing the crime alleged.

In forty-two days, Judge Stiverson will be asked to dismiss the final charge in the prosecution made possible by the warrant they signed.

That is a moment Hillsdale County should not miss.

Because dismissal is not enough.

Dismissal does not answer why the warrant was signed.

Dismissal does not answer whether the judge was given the full record.

Dismissal does not answer whether the judge knew the county clerk had admitted he lacked authority to seize the ballots and tabulator.

Dismissal does not answer why the Sheriff stood by.

Dismissal does not answer why the commissioners refused to act.

Dismissal does not answer why the county clerk was protected after admitting conduct that should have triggered investigation.

Dismissal does not answer why people asking for election law to be followed keep getting threatened.

And dismissal does not secure the next election.

That is the real issue.

The question is no longer whether the Adams Township prosecution failed.

It failed.

The question now is whether anyone in Hillsdale County government has the courage to admit what that failure exposed.

A township clerk was charged for conduct tied to the county clerk.

A warrant was signed without evidence establishing the alleged crime.

The Sheriff was informed and did not stop it.

The commissioners remained silent.

The State pushed forward.

And one judge finally said no.

So congratulations to Judge Sara Lisznyai for doing what too many elected officials refused to do.

She stood on the law.

Now the rest of Hillsdale County government has forty-two days to decide whether it will continue hiding behind silence, or finally face what was done in Adams Township.

Because if a township clerk can be threatened, raided, prosecuted, and nearly destroyed for standing on election law, while the officials responsible are protected by silence, then Hillsdale County does not have an election integrity problem.

It has a government integrity problem.

in liberty,
Samuel Adams