LANSING, Mich. — *EDITORS NOTE* When this story was first published, it was using incorrect data provided by the Michigan Secretary of State's Voter Registration Statistics page. The Secretary of State Office has since corrected this data and this article now reflects that new data. The new data regarding voter registration cancellations is available here.
The Republican National Convention (RNC) is suing Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Director of the Michigan Bureau of Elections Jonathan Brater in order to force the state to purge inactive voters from Michigan's voter registration records.
The RNC claims that Michigan's active-voter registration rates far exceed the nation's average and are in fact "impossibly high" with more active registered voters than there are adults above the age of 18 in dozens of counties.
The Michigan Voter Information Center currently lists the number of registered Michigan voters as 8,286,861, while the 2022 National Census data estimates only 7,923,998 Michigan residents aged 18 or above. This puts Michigan's voter registration rate at 102.8%.
"At least 53 Michigan counties have more active registered voters than they have adult citizens who are over the age of 18. That number of voters is impossibly high," the lawsuit alleges. "An additional 23 counties have active-voter registration rates that exceed 90 percent of adult citizens over the age of 18. That figure far eclipses the national and statewide voter registration rate in recent elections."
In West Michigan, the RNC suit claims that six counties have more active registered voters than adults over the age of 18, while three more counties have active-voter registration higher than 90%.
- Barry (102%)
- Kalamazoo (95%)
- Kent (100%)
- Montcalm (95%)
- Muskegon (101%)
- Newaygo (103%)
- Oceana (105%)
- Ottawa (98%)
- Van Buren (104%)
The lawsuit alleges that Michigan is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). The RNC claims that Michigan has failed to meet the requirements of Section 8 of NVRA.
The RNC hopes to force Benson and Brater to "develop and implement reasonable and effective registration list-maintenance programs to cure their failure to comply with section 8 of the NVRA and to ensure that ineligible registrants are not on the voter rolls."
The suit claims that "voter fraud is very real in Michigan," citing three convictions of voter fraud between 2020 and now. The three cases all dealt with fraud surrounding absentee ballots. The three fraud cases accounted for less than 100 fraudulent absentee ballots in elections in 2020 and 2021.
Benson and other election officials have pushed back against any widespread fraud in the 2020 election, which was proven through an audit of the election the following year.
More recently, Benson and Brater also claimed that the state is complying with the NVRA during a press conference on early voting in February. Brater said that the state must comply with local and federal laws when purging people from the state's active-voter registrations.
The Department of State lists 360,940 inactive voter registrations slated for cancellation in 2025 and another 193,898 slated for 2027.
In Michigan, there is a two-election waiting period before canceling registrations for voters who have moved. The state said this is required by both state and federal law.
The lawsuit also includes two Michigan residents as plaintiffs: Jordan Jorritsma and Emerson Silvernail, who are both legislative directors for the Michigan House of Representatives.
"Because Defendants do not maintain accurate voter rolls, [the plaintiff] reasonably fears that ineligible voters can and do vote in Michigan elections. Those votes will dilute his legitimate vote. And Michigan’s inaccurate rolls undermine [the plaintiff]'s confidence in the integrity of Michigan elections, which also burdens his right to vote," the lawsuit alleges.
The suit against Benson comes just days after the RNC voted to install Donald Trump's handpicked chair.
Michael Whatley, a North Carolina Republican who has echoed Trump’s false theories of voter fraud, was elected the party’s new national chairman in a vote Friday morning in Houston. Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law, was voted in as co-chair.
Earlier this month, a similar suit was dismissed by a judge. That suit was filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a conservative legal group based out of Virginia.
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