Michigan Sec. of State's election restrictions struck down, adding to list of election issues

A Michigan appeals court ruled against the Secretary of State over election challenger restrictions, adding another court loss for the office, which has seen at least a few election issues in recent years.

While the state's intermediate appeals court ruled against the Secretary of State’s office last week, a lower claims court had previously struck down the office’s signature verification directive from 2020, and the state Auditor General found issues with voter roll maintenance.

On Thursday, the Michigan Court of Appeals upheld a previous lower court ruling from last year that invalidated Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s rules on election challengers and poll watchers.

In May 2022, Benson issued a manual for poll watchers and election challengers. The manual required the latter to use a credential form to be able to serve as a challenger. State law simply requires “written credentials,” and the political parties had previously provided their own challenger credential forms, according to the appeals court. Thus, the court ruled that the Secretary of State’s office could provide credential forms but that challengers aren’t required to use them.

The manual also restricted with whom election challengers could communicate, limiting them to only speaking with challenger liaisons. The court found that this part of the manual represented an overreach of authority on the part of the Secretary of State, and allowed challengers to directly communicate with election workers.

Additionally, the manual didn’t require improper challenges to voters' eligibility to be recorded in the poll book. The court ruled that instead, all challenges must be recorded and that challengers cannot be removed from polling places for repeatedly making impermissible challenges.

The manual also prevented challengers from using cellphones or other electronic devices while observing absentee ballot counting boards. The court ruled that challengers may possess electronic devices but that using them to share information about the process or vote count is prohibited.

The unanimous appeals court decision told the Secretary of State’s office to either revise the manual or completely rescind it.

The case, which consolidated two separate lawsuits, has been ongoing since late last year. The Michigan GOP and Republican National Committee are plaintiffs in the case.

On Oct. 20, 2022, the Michigan Court of Claims ordered that revisions to the Secretary of State’s manual be made. However, the Michigan Supreme Court stayed the order pending appeal on Nov. 3, just days before the midterm elections.

The Secretary of State’s office told Just the News on Monday regarding the court decision, “The Department will appeal last week’s ruling.” Michigan procedural laws provide that an appellant has 42 days to file an appeal to the state's highest court.

This case isn’t the first time that a court has struck down Benson’s election rules.

In March 2021, the Michigan Court of Claims invalidated Benson’s Oct. 6, 2020, directive that signatures on absentee ballot applications or absentee ballot envelopes “should be considered questionable only if it differs in multiple, significant and obvious respects from the signature on file.” 

The court ruled that the directive was illegal because it circumvented the state’s rule-making process, which includes involvement of the legislature.

Then, in March 2022, Michigan's Auditor General found that Benson failed to adhere to state election law by properly updating and reconciling the voter rolls. The audit examined all elections starting in 2019 and going through the March 2021 election. The failure to properly clean the voter rolls, according to the audit, increased the risk of ineligible voters casting ballots.

When asked to comment on the audit, the Secretary of State’s office provided a link to Michigan’s voter list maintenance procedures.

While the Secretary of State’s office didn’t adequately maintain its voter rolls, voter registration fraud allegedly occurred in Michigan leading up to the 2020 presidential election.

In August, the Michigan Attorney General's office confirmed that there was a state investigation into thousands of suspected fraudulent voter registrations during the 2020 election. That investigation was referred to the FBI, the Bridge Michigan reported.

Danny Wimmer, press secretary for the state Attorney General, told Just the News that among 8,000 to 10,000 voter registration forms that were submitted to the Muskegon clerk before the 2020 general election, some were, after review, suspected to be fraudulent. 

"An organization turned in some thousands of voter registrations throughout the fall of 2020, estimated on the high end to be cumulatively 8-10,000, and some within those batches were found to be suspicious or fraudulent," Wimmer said. "There were legitimate registrations within the batches. The city clerk receiving the batches alerted authorities when she began noticing irregularities."

"None of the fraudulent material was incorporated into the state’s qualified voter file, and this had no effect on any ballot requests or associated processes. This attempted fraud was detected because the system worked," Wimmer added. 

According to the dozens of pages of police reports from the Muskegon Police Department and Michigan State Police, a firm called GBI Strategies was under scrutiny as an organization central to alleged voter registration fraud in the 2020 presidential election. The matter was initially investigated by city and state authorities before the FBI took over in 2021.

The status and results of the FBI investigation are unknown as the agency denied a Freedom of Information/Privacy Acts request from Just the News regarding records from the investigation into GBI Strategies. The FBI's denial stated that the investigation "was still ongoing."

The Secretary of State’s office also told Just the News, “Michigan's 2020 election was found to be secure and accurate by hundreds of audits, numerous courts, and the Republican-led state Senate Oversight Committee.”