LANSING, Mich. (Legal Newsline) - As a constitutional attorney, Matt DePerno is one of several in Michigan who has filed lawsuits challenging what happened in the 2020 presidential election.
“I was able to get forensic images out of the Antrim County case and we've studied the Dominion Voting System to understand what actually happened in Antrim County on Election Day,” DePerno told Legal Newsline.
The Kalamazoo lawyer filed a lawsuit on behalf of Antrim County resident William Bailey alleging that Dominion Voting System machines enlisted an algorithm to influence election results by misassigning value to ballots that were cast. The case was dismissed - a decision he is appealing.
“My goal is always to just make sure that we enforce the Constitution and to stand by the rule of law,” DePerno said. “Too often, we see both parties in the state of Michigan violate the Constitution. There's no one willing to stand up and argue on behalf of the people across the state.”
Now, he’s campaigning to replace Dana Nessel as Michigan’s attorney general. DePerno announced his candidacy on Twitter last week.
“The Michigan Attorney General has not been following the law in Michigan or enforcing the law in Michigan for quite some time,” DePerno said. “She's attacking and threatening a lot of people who have been involved in election fraud cases. Certainly, our attorney general seems to be someone who will only enforce the law when it comes to her political opponents who are adversaries. She does nothing to investigate people within her own party.”
DePerno says his vision is to ensure that everyone's vote counts.
“Right now, that is not happening and there seems to be a roadblock in Lansing, Michigan, where the parties cannot come together to work on proper resolutions or bills in order to make sure that everyone's vote counts correctly,” he said.
DePerno said he would enforce the law equally against everyone.
“Dana Nessel, at her core, is a Marxist,” he said. “I don't think we should be afraid to say it and talk about what her real politics are. She wants to make sure that everyone cedes to the will of the government and she does nothing to ensure that people's constitutional rights are protected. It's quite troubling the way that she refuses to enforce the law or investigate anyone within her own party.”
When asked to respond to DePerno's "Marxist" comment, Nessel's press secretary Lynsey Mukomel told Legal Newsline, "I refuse to dignify Mr. DePerno’s comment with a response."
DePerno will have to successfully fend off fellow Republican challengers in order to face Nessel in a general election.
“I've received a couple of calls from establishment Republicans asking me not to run in the race,” he said. “The reasons they've told me is that while they certainly want to promote a progressive candidate, they think that a conservative running in the race will create friction at the party convention in the spring."
DePerno’s response has been that it’s a fight conservatives need to have.
“There are 83 counties and about 77 of them are conservative counties that historically vote 65% Republican and in those counties over the last 15 years, there's been a trend where we see Democrats who can't win in those Northern or West Michigan counties who campaigned as Republicans,” DePerno added. “They infiltrated the Republican Party and now they've created a progressive wing within the party. Those are the obstacles we have right now as patriots or grassroots conservatives... getting our party back.”