When ‘Caution’ Is a Cover: The SOS Noncitizen Voter Shell Game

By Patrice Johnson, Chair and Co-founder, Pure Integrity Michigan Elections

The Michigan Department of State is at it again, offering elaborate procedural handwringing and couched threats against clerks as substitutes for the one straightforward action that would actually solve the problem.

Recently, Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini did what any responsible elections official would do: he compared jury pool questionnaires — forms where people self-certify they are not U.S. citizens to avoid jury duty — against the Qualified Voter File. He found 18 people registered to vote who had claimed noncitizenship. Three had voted. The Department of State's own investigation confirmed at least one had cast a ballot without being a citizen.

That's not a database glitch. That's a verified noncitizen vote. The nullification of a legitimate voter's ballot.

Rather than treating that as the urgent problem it is, the SOS's Bureau of Elections responded with a memo that reads more like a liability shield and veiled threat to clerks than a good-faith effort to protect election integrity.

County clerks should consult with their legal counsel prior to comparing Jury List questionnaires to the QVF. There is no Michigan Election Law prohibition on using jury list information, but BOE cannot advise counties on the permitted or prohibited uses of jury list information that may be found in other statutes, regulations, or agreements. [emphasis added]

Yes, the March 11 memo correctly notes that citizenship status can be stale in the state’s driver file. Yes, database matching requires care. These are real considerations. But they are also, in the hands of this administration, a convenient excuse for inaction.

To put the situation in context, the state House of Representatives voted to hold Secretary Benson's MDOS in contempt for failing to comply with legislative subpoenas requesting election training materials for county, city, and township clerks, and the Secretary has lost eight election-related lawsuits. (See list below.)

Here's the part Secretary Benson won't say out loud: There are simple, proven solutions. First, our state has same-day voter registration. If anyone is erroneously removed from the voter rolls, he or she may re-up their registration as late as Election Day.

Second and as importantly, the state could transmit individual inquiries or the entirety of Michigan's voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) for citizenship verification through the SAVE system — the very same federal database the Bureau of Elections references in its own memo.

DHS has the records. USCIS has the records. The SOS can directly verify the citizenship status of any voter registrant, including those who decline jury duty claiming noncitizenship. A simple citizenship-check request would resolve the ambiguity that the SOS claims is making the issue so difficult.

Instead? The Benson administration is failing run its own checks and is fighting the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which is pursuing legal action for access to Michigan's voter rolls.

Consider this: The Secretary of State is telling county clerks that jury list comparisons are too unreliable--all while she is refusing to use the one federal tool that would be reliable.

That is not caution. That is obstruction dressed in administrative bureaucrat language.

And the stakes extend beyond noncitizen voting. Michigan citizens submitted 750,000 petition signatures—the most ever gathered for a state referendum—earlier this month for a proposed constitutional amendment that would require proof of citizenship upon voter registration.

The proposed state constitutional amendment would require verification for current registrants whose citizenship cannot be independently confirmed.

Those signatures are now sitting in the Secretary of State’s office. Sen. Ruth Johnson (R- Senate Dist. 24) told a group of Mid-Michigan Republican Women on Friday, March 13, that a member of the SOS Benson's staff indicated the boxes may be left unopened and signatures unverified due to "staffing issues" for the upcoming months.

The Secretary needs to assign adequate staff now to begin verification. Every week of delay fuels legitimate public concern that this administration intends to slow-walk the process to keep a popular, common-sense reform off the November ballot. Michiganders deserve transparency about the timeline, the staffing, and the procedures being applied.

The memo the Bureau of Elections sent to county clerks is not wrong on every point. Cross-database matching requires legal counsel and care. Citizens should not be wrongly removed from the rolls. We agree. (But if they are, the option to re-register is readily available.)

More importantly, those guardrails cannot become a permanent excuse to do nothing — not when a county clerk has already identified a confirmed noncitizen vote, not when a federal verification pathway exists and is being actively resisted, and not when three-quarters of a million Michiganders are waiting to see if their signatures will be treated with the respect they deserve.

The Secretary of State's job is to protect the integrity of Michigan elections — for citizens, and only for citizens. It is past time she acted like it.

Pure Integrity Michigan Elections is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit dedicated to community organizing for election integrity and administrative law compliance in Michigan.

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Lawsuits and court rulings against SOS Benson regarding election administration 

On Oct 9, 2024, MFEI listed the eight election integrity lawsuits below in which judges had ruled against Secretary of State Benson. See Michigan court rules against SOS Benson for guiding clerks to count mismatched mail ballots:

1. RNC v Benson. Case No. 24-000148-MZ, Court of Claims, Oct. 10, 2024.

   Judge Brock Swartzle ruled to ensure mail ballots are cast and counted properly. Requires ballot serial number matching.

2. RNC v Benson, Case No. 24-000143-MX, Court of Claims, Sep. 27, 2024

   Registrant signature on absentee ballot envelope must match signature on file.

3. RNC v Benson, Case No.24- 000041 Court of Claims. On July 30, 2024, Judge Christopher Yates of the Court of Claims ruled, “The ‘initial presumption”’ of validity in signature verification of absentee-ballot applications and envelopes mandated by the December 2023 guidance manual issued by Defendants is incompatible with the Constitution and laws of the state of Michigan, and (b) the catch line referring to an ‘initial presumption of validity’ in R 168.22 of the Michigan Administrative Code is incompatible with the Constitution and laws fo the state of Michigan.”

4. Genetski v Benson. Case No. 20-000216-MM; 

   "The guidance issued by the Secretary of State on October 6, 2020, with respect to signature matching standards was issued in violation of the Administrative Standards Act," per Judge Christopher Murray, Court of Claims, Mar. 9, 2021.

5. Davis v Benson. Case No. 20-000207-MZ October 27, 2020, Judge Christopher Murray issued an injunction against the SOS's directive to ban the open carry of firearms in polling places.

6. Carra v Benson. Case No. 20-000211-MZ; Judge Cynthia Stephens issued a preliminary injunction against Benson and Brater’s legally unauthorized poll challenger directives.

7. Johnson v Benson. Civil Action No. 1:20-cv-948; On October 19, 2020, United States District Judge Paul Maloney ordered Benson to revise her guidance to comply with statute regarding the time and manner of election processes.

8. O’Halloran v Benson. Case No. 22-000162-MZ. On October 20, 2022, Court of Claims Judge Brock Swartzle ordered Benson to revise her poll challenger guidelines to comply with Michigan Election Law.