Question 1): The Board of State Canvassers (BSC) deadlocked last Thursday on the question of whether Republican gubernatorial candidates James CRAIG and Perry JOHNSON are eligible for the August 2 GOP primary ballot. Why? Because they didn’t turn in enough valid signatures, according to the state Bureau of Elections. The pair appeared to be victims of fraud committed by their signature gatherers, and although nobody contends the candidates themselves were aware of the malfeasance it’s obvious Johnson and Craig failed to monitor their campaigns’ petition-gathering efforts before they filed to run for the state’s highest office. The same goes for three other Republican gubernatorial hopefuls: Michael MARKEY, Donna BRANDENBURG, and Michael BROWN, so if all this holds up the 10-candidate GOP field has been cut in half. Four Congressional candidates and nine judicial candidates were also kicked off the ballot. Is this likely to stand, and what impact are these developments likely to have on Michigan’s 2022 gubernatorial race overall?
Answer 1): There are a number of issues here, and this story is far from over:
First, let’s review the facts. The Bureau of Elections determined that at least 36 petition circulators submitted a minimum of 68,000 fraudulent signatures across at least 10 nominating petitions — not all of them petitions for governor and not all of them submitted by Republicans. Those whose petitions were deemed insufficient because of fraudulent signatures included a Democratic Congressional candidate and nine judicial candidates, who appear on the nonpartisan section of the ballot. The head of the elections division, Jonathan Brater, claimed the bureau found signatures written in identical handwriting and many other indicators of fraud, including a “round robin” process in which circulators pass around petitions for multiple candidates and take turns signing to make the petitions look genuine. Officials also found many dead voters and others who no longer lived at the addresses where they were listed. Brater — who was appointed by Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and who himself is the son of a former Democratic state senator — claimed officials “did not have time” to check every signature against the Qualified Voter File, and they were not required to do so, given the clear patterns of fraud demonstrated by certain circulators. Brater maintained his staff did check more than 1,000 of the suspect signatures against the Qualified Voter File, and found not a single one that matched.
Second, In a completely unrelated (but pertinent) development, Brater’s Department of State acknowledged it may “not always be able to meet statutory deadlines” when making certain documents in an investigation publicly available. In a letter brushing off a complaint involving how much time the bureau had taken to deal with the Michigan Campaign Finance law (MFCA), Chief of Staff Melissa J. SMILEY wrote that the department’s binding statutory obligation is “to complete all investigations by reaching the correct disposition” under the MFCA. “The practical reality is that sometimes the department must still make decisions as to how it prioritizes workloads based on its staffing capacity and resources,” she noted. “Consistent with this, the department makes a good-faith effort to meet all statutory deadlines when it can, but when following the deadline would prevent the department from fairly and properly conducting investigations, the department may take action outside of the statute.” To paraphrase Smiley’s contention, “If we feel we don’t have time to do statutorily-mandated work — like validating signatures on petitions — we’ll just ignore it or throw the petitions and candidates out.”
Third, the two Democratic BSC members voted against allowing the the “Fraudulent Five” on the ballot. The two Republicans (Tony Daunt and Norm Shinkle) decried the circulators’ fraud (which the GOP members did not dispute) and called them “criminals.” Nevertheless, they said the candidates should be approved for the ballot, thus the 2-2 deadlock, sending the matter to the courts. How could Shinkle and Daunt justify giving the candidates a pass despite their campaigns’ transgressions? On the grounds that Daunt and Shinkle did not believe the Bureau had thoroughly completed its task, mandated by law, of scrutinizing enough signatures to determine whether they were all in fact invalid.
Fourth, Smiley’s argument — and the Republican BSC members’ rationale for their vote — is precisely why lawyers for the Michigan Republican Party and some of the candidates argued that state elections officials made a Smiley-like mistake when they threw out all signatures collected by circulators they determined had committed forgery. Instead, no signature should have been thrown out as fake simply because Elections Bureaus officials “didn’t have time” to do the job they are charged with doing. They should have compared the signatures individually with the signatures the state has on file in the Qualified Voter File, they argued.
Fifth, Perry Johnson and Michael Markey have already appealed to the state Court of Appeals, and Craig to the Court of Claims. About Donna “Goat Rodeo” Brandenburg we can’t be sure. Brown announced that, based on the alleged fraud uncovered, he’s ending his campaign, so the field is already down to nine.
Sixth, lawyers and commentators affiliated with the Michigan Democratic Party were quick to jump on the petition fraud embarrassment to heap still more ridicule on the Republican gubernatorial candidates. Adrian HEMOND, CEO of Grassroots Midwest, claims Gov. Gretchen WHITMER was the big winner from the petition fiasco. “This GOP race went from ‘troubled’ to ‘clown college’ faster than the former president could tweet. RIP GOP statewide hopes, ” Hemond said in MIRS newsletter last week. Former Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer, who filed the original complaints against the GOP petitions, predictably supported Brater and the Bureau by asserting that, once the election bureaucrats found evidence of fraudulent petitions, the Bureau was within its rights not to consider any legitimate petitions that may have been filed at all. Former Gov. James Blanchard opined that the Republican candidates appeared to be “from Jupiter.” Indeed, it appears the Democratic lawyers, politicians, commentators, and the Bureau as well as most of the news media are all on the same page, with every decision and statement orchestrated from beginning to end for maximum public effect.
Seventh, these Democratic operatives may get hit with a “Be Careful What You Wish For” blowback. If the “Fraudulent Five” candidates are in fact denied ballot access by the courts (which will make the final call, possibly by the end of this week and almost certainly by June 18) it would be manna from heaven for Garrett SOLDANO, Kevin RINKE and especially Tudor Dixon, who just got a major endorsement from the DeVos family and much needed financial support. At the same time, if both the leading candidate (Craig) and biggest self-funder (Johnson) are out of the race, it may finally get former President Donald TRUMP into the act, for better or worse. Dixon may immediately rise to the top of the establishment support list as a result of the DeVoses’ endorsement. Many have believed from the beginning that, if Dixon could win the nomination, she would be the strongest Republican nominee against beleaguered incumbent Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. The question will be whether Michigan’s conservative king/queen makers (the DeVoses) still have influence over what has become a Trump-era base. Their fading influence, combined with a still historically large field, might give Soldano a chance to sneak through the primary. Meanwhile, Rinke will probably up his TV ad buy.
Finally, the ultimate question of who gets on the ballot will be decided by the courts, first the appellate bench and then, depending on how they rule, the Supreme Court, which may get another hot potato to go along with their verdict on the Whitmer-inspired demand that the state’s 1931 abortion law be overturned. There is a good chance one of these courts will demand that the Bureau of Elections simply do its job and start verifying signatures, instead of guessing. That may mean delays will happen past June 18, and if so we could even see the Aug. 2 primary postponed. It happened back in 1982. Stay tuned.
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Bill ,. I love your report but I wish you could avoid the partisan quips. Someone needs to start not taking sides , and serve as a role model for the future. I know it can be done.
Clearly this new group of “candidates” are too lazy for these jobs.
Nice article, Bill.
It would be interesting to see if the AG or the SOS would investigate this – not that I expect them to do so – as this level of fraud seems almost systemic, much worse than the staff incompetence that Thaddeus McCotter suffered through. Regardless, it clearly undercuts the “Quality Guru” claim of Mr. Johnson and reinforces the idea that as a politician, James Craig, as noted earlier by Jim Kiertzner of Channel 7, was a rank amateur.
In the future, it might help if the Elections Director is not the offspring of an elected state official. Sometimes, appearances matter. The Elections Director should be like Caesar’s wife.
I was particularly interested/appalled at how the Elections staff justified their actions. From your article: “The practical reality is that sometimes the department must still make decisions as to how it prioritizes workloads based on its staffing capacity and resources,” she noted. “Consistent with this, the department makes a good-faith effort to meet all statutory deadlines when it can, but when following the deadline would prevent the department from fairly and properly conducting investigations, the department may take action outside of the statute.” You catch the tone and tenor quite rightly: “To paraphrase Smiley’s contention, “If we feel we don’t have time to do statutorily-mandated work — like validating signatures on petitions — we’ll just ignore it or throw the petitions and candidates out.”
It would have made my job a lot easier if I could have used that excuse – AND GOTTEN AWAY WITH IT – during my 42+ years of state service, or if I had been able to use it when defending a grievant when I was a chief steward.
When it comes to Michigan politics, Mencken was right, “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” Not that all that government service has made me cynical or anything like that. (Sorry, the evil machine won’t let me do a smiley face icon/emoji thingy).
Great analysis, Bill. Although it has been rare for non-Democrat/non-Republicans to have a shot at major party status (8), I wonder how much the media would support the right of voters to vote for the candidate of their choice in the face of Herculean petition demands.
In 2018, our campaign got it done early. The SOS made it clear that we could continue to add names if they concluded that the percentage wasn’t running at appropriate levels. The error of these campaigns was waiting until the last minute — putting the Elections Bureau in an impossible position. What hasn’t been said is that “sampling” is done all the time. BOE can’t be expected to check every name.
Besides the hundreds of volunteers and the paid services, our internal team of over 40 people compared with the Qualified Voter File for almost a week before heading to the BOE.
Sad that anyone that presume to manage our State as Governor would run such a shabby and inept petition process. Speaks volumes.
Bill,
Great article.
First, I both disagree and agree with Rail bird. I disagree in the sense that the “partisan quips,” are what makes an article like this, whose focus is highly concentrated on a genre with little public interest, interesting to the general public. I agree with Rail in the sense that “news” must become less partisan. To this extent, maybe go with the Ricky Gervais style and equally rail (pun intended) on both sides of the aisle.
Second, @Bill Gelineau… I don’t think all of all the candidates waited till the last minute. Michael Brown was relatively early on submitting his signatures, and Markey submitted his with over a month until the April deadline. You said that you had an internal team comparing names to the QVF, however, importantly to distinguish (which you did not) is that this comparison is simply whether or not the signature comes from a registered voter and does the address given match the current records.
It’s unclear whether any of the “fraud five” (okay, I guess Bill did provide quips against both sides) other than Craig and to a lesser extent Perry had QVF registration issues since the bureau decided to throw out ALL petition sheets from circulators who submitted fraudulent sheets, since as Mary Ellen Gurewitz put it, (paraphrasing) “if they lied on one sheet, then we must assume they lied on the rest.”
If I understand this correctly, Brater says the petitions that were not accepted and not examined signature by signature were from circulators who were 0 for a thousand on those signatures that were checked. If that is true, or close to being true, those candidates relying on examination of every signature are going to be out of luck no matter what the MSC decides.
I mean this in a totally non-partisan manner and appreciate your commentary Bill.
But, flashy running backs make headlines and are great to watch, but if you can’t block and tackle you won’t win many games. Clearly collecting a paltry number of signatures is fundamental to running for office. If you can’t manage that, how can you manage the state.?
Ralph Rebandt and Ryan Kelley have had little funding and had far smaller campaign organizations but had no problems in meeting the signature threshold.
Rebandt and Kelley had campaigned throughout the state – unlike James Craig whose presence was virtually non-existent at GOP events.
The fact that Kelley is now leading the GOP gubernatorial field in a recent poll is due to the fact he has been campaigning heavily across Michigan.
I just wish they would offer filing fees. To run for State Senate, House or say County Commissioner you can file petitions or $100. I know Governor would have to have a higher fee than $100 but at least the issue would be moot. Although obviously petitions give you a list of potential supporters. Third parties have it easier LOL If the Libertarians or Greens or any third party nominated me I am instantly the nominee for Governor. No fee required.