LANSING, Mich. – This year’s presidential election would be for Sheryl Guy, who was looking forward to retirement after working for more than four decades in the clerk’s office in northern Michigan’s Antrim County.

The outcome of Tuesday’s primary election could upset those plans.

Five candidates are vying in the Republican primary to succeed her as the county’s top election official, a position she has held for the past 12 years. The winner will benefit in the Republican-leaning county in November.

One of those candidates has fueled election conspiracies and been a vocal critic of the election office since the 2020 presidential election, when Antrim County was thrust into the national spotlight as then-President Donald Trump pushed to overturn the results in Michigan and other swing states.

If the election skeptic wins the primary, Guy said she plans to run as a write-in candidate in the general election.

“I’m afraid that the taxpayers and the county will become part of their agenda,” she said. “I can’t just hand over an office I’ve worked in for over 45 years to an election conspirator.”

The Antrim County race is just one of many in Michigan and other states holding primaries on Tuesday. Michigan’s is the latest to feature Republican candidates who have promoted election conspiracies or been openly skeptical of voting and vote counting, despite no evidence of widespread fraud or problems in the nation’s elections.

This year’s primaries have served as a gauge of Republican voters’ enthusiasm for candidates who continue to promote false claims about the 2020 election in a party where a strong majority still believes Democratic President Joe Biden was not legitimately elected. Even so, the results have been mixed.

Last week, Republican voters in Arizona’s Maricopa County ousted the head of the elections office who had relentlessly defended the legitimacy of the state’s elections and faced years of threats and harassment to do so. They elected a state lawmaker who has questioned various aspects of the election system, setting up what will almost certainly be a high-profile general election battle in a county that is a perennial target for election conspirators.

Earlier this year, a county commissioner in a key political county in another presidential election state, Nevada, survived a primary challenge from election conspirators.

In Michigan, Antrim County isn’t the only place with electoral conspiracy theorists in the GOP primary.

Two Republicans who are part of a group accused of rigging presidential elections after the 2020 election are vying to become their party’s nominees — one for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives and the other for a local clerk position. The southwest Michigan county sheriff who has continued to investigate false claims of widespread voter fraud from the 2020 election is running for re-election against several Republican opponents.

The focus on Antrim County, a Republican hotbed near the resort town of Traverse City, began shortly after the 2020 presidential election when the county reported a landslide win for Biden.

The problem was attributed to human error, not a problem with voting machines, and the results were quickly corrected to show Trump winning the county.

That did nothing to calm speculation that something sinister had taken place. Those who questioned Trump’s loss in Michigan quickly seized on the reporting error to suggest that voting machines were responsible for widespread fraud, even though there has been no such evidence.

Guy, who said she voted for Trump in 2020, continues to be the target of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and personal attacks.

Victoria Bishop, along with her husband Randy, a conservative radio host who has sued Guy, has been a vocal proponent of election conspiracy theories and is now seeking Guy’s position.

Bishop did not return phone calls and text messages seeking comment. When reached by phone, her husband said she would have no comment. Bishop’s social media pages say she aims to “restore electoral integrity to Antrim County.” Among her plans is to count each ballot by hand to ensure they match the machine results.

Four other candidates are running in the Republican primary, including one Guy has endorsed. If Bishop wins, Guy said she will postpone her retirement to run as a write-in in November.

“It’s not just my race. It’s the sheriff’s race. It’s the township races. We’re being infiltrated,” Guy said. “They come in and they try to take over.”

Research has shown that hand counting of ballots takes longer and is less accurate than machine tabulation.

“Some of these activists are pushing for changes to the election process that actually make elections less secure,” said David Becker, an election law expert and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research. “Hand counts are less accurate, and more importantly, they take longer. And if you take more time, we’ve seen that there are unscrupulous candidates who will use that time in that vacuum to spread lies and potentially violence.”

In southeast Michigan, Stanley Grot is running for re-election as Shelby Township clerk, a position that oversees local elections. Grot has been barred from presiding over any election after being charged last year by state prosecutors with acting as a 2020 fraudulent voter for Trump.

In response to a request for comment about his race and the allegations, Grot replied, “No comment.”

Another accused false elector, Republican Michele Lundgren, is running unopposed in a primary Tuesday for a seat in the Michigan House of Representatives. She is expected to face House Speaker Joe Tate, a Democrat, in November. Lundgren did not immediately respond to an email request for comment.

Grot’s and Lundgren’s candidacies represent the prominent role that the perpetrators of election fraud have in the state Republican Party. Several other Republicans involved in the fraudulent voter conspiracy were part of the Michigan delegation that attended the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in July.

Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has sought to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election through multiple investigations, is running for re-election and facing several other Republicans. He is one of several so-called “constitutional sheriffs” who have fueled conspiracies in recent years and believe their power in a county is greater than that of any other official.