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Trump calls Benson ‘hater’

LANSING (AP) — President Donald Trump called Michigan’s top election official a “Trump Hater” Thursday after the state mistakenly created overseas absentee ballots that didn’t list Vice President Mike Pence.

The ballots instead paired Trump, a Republican, with Jeremy “Spike” Cohen of the Libertarian Party.

The Michigan secretary of state office acknowledged that as many as 400 ballots downloaded by local election clerks may have been erroneous. But the state said the problem was fixed within 90 minutes Tuesday.

“The Democrat Trump Hater Secretary of State of Michigan, purposely misprinted Ballots for the Military, putting the wrong names on the Ballot, and actually listing a member of another party as a replacement for Vice President,” Trump said on Twitter.

The president claimed it was “done illegally and on purpose. We want Mike!”

Election clerks were told by the state to issue correct ballots and tell voters to ignore the erroneous ballot if they received one.

“This was an unintended computer glitch that was caught & quickly corrected,” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, tweeted in response to Trump. “Suggesting otherwise is false & misleading. Impacted voters immediately received an accurate ballot & guidance to ensure their vote counts.”

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