Michigan Clock Scandal as Analogy for Distrust in America's Election Systems
Source: Shawn Fleetwood. "Michigan's Clock Scandal Epitomizes America's Broken Elections." September 9, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author compares a controversial college football officiating decision—where officials overturned what everyone saw on the clock using a technical explanation nobody could verify—to how he believes American elections are handled. He argues that in both cases, authorities dismiss legitimate concerns from ordinary people as conspiracy theories, which damages public trust in the fairness of the systems.
Conclusion
America's elections, like the officiating in the Michigan-Western Michigan football game, suffer from a lack of transparency and fairness, and those who raise legitimate concerns about this are unfairly dismissed as conspiracy theorists, eroding public trust.
Premises
- In the Michigan-Western Michigan game, broadcast and stadium clocks clearly showed the game had ended before Michigan's winning play, yet officials overturned this using an opaque, unverifiable explanation (camera strobe alignment) that contradicted what everyone visually witnessed.
- The Big Ten's response to the controversy amounted to telling the public to disbelieve their own eyes and trust an unaccountable authority.
- In the 2020 election, large private donations (e.g., from Zuckerberg) were funneled into election offices in Democrat-leaning areas to promote favored voting policies like mass mail-in voting.
- Election officials in key battleground states unilaterally changed election procedures (e.g., ballot drop box rules) without legislative approval.
- Big Tech companies censored the Hunter Biden laptop story before the 2020 election, potentially suppressing information relevant to voters.
- A surge of late-arriving ballots affected the outcome of the Los Angeles mayoral race, raising integrity concerns.
- People who raise concerns about these election issues are routinely dismissed as 'election deniers' or 'conspiracy theorists,' similar to how skeptics of the football officiating decision were dismissed.
Assumptions
- The football officiating controversy and election integrity concerns are analogous in structure and severity.
- Institutional explanations that are difficult for the public to verify are inherently suspect or illegitimate.
- The cited 2020 election practices (private funding of election offices, drop boxes, procedural changes) were improper or unfair rather than legal adaptations to circumstances like the pandemic.
- Dismissing concerns as 'conspiracy theories' is always an illegitimate rhetorical tactic rather than sometimes a fair characterization of unsubstantiated claims.
- Public perception of unfairness (whether or not backed by conclusive evidence) is itself sufficient evidence of systemic unfairness.
- The various election-related grievances listed (Zuckerberg funding, drop boxes, Hunter Biden story, LA mayoral race) are comparable examples of the same underlying problem of institutional untrustworthiness.