Dozens of legal Michigan voters last week filed a state Supreme Court lawsuit against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Attorney General Dana Nessel, and state election officials, aiming to overturn recent election law changes.
The lawsuit centers on “unlawful guidance for elections” issued by Benson since she took office, and Proposal 2 approved by voters in 2022 that Michigan Supreme Court justices ordered to appear on the ballot.
“Petitioners have reason to believe (Proposal 2) resulted in a number of unconstitutional revisions to the Michigan Constitution, and subsequent new election laws, making it impossible for the State of Michigan to guarantee all legally eligible Michigan voters a free, fair, lawful, secure, and transparent election process in the 2024 elections,” the lawsuit reads.
The group of 130 voters points to seven separate court rulings that have found Benson’s election guidance unlawful. Those court rulings, however, resulted in zero consequences for Benson’s failures.
“With the introduction of our lawsuit, we hope to change that … ahead of the Michigan Primary in August and general elections in November,” according to a news release.
“With today’s legal action we are asking the Michigan Supreme Court to effectively hit the reset button on our constitution and derivative statutes which have been put in place since 2022,” the release read.
The plaintiffs argue Benson’s office ignores, subverts, or rewrites Michigan election laws she doesn’t like, noting testimony from Benson attorney Heather Meingast during a Michigan Court of Appeals case that forced Benson to rewrite poll challenger guidance.
Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial
For laws Benson doesn’t like, “we might just choose not to do it … we could leave that statute sitting there and could continue to issue instructions and give guidance, and somebody would probably sue us,” Meingast said.
The lawsuit contends Proposal 2 – promoted by a coalition that included the ACLU of Michigan, NAACP Michigan State Conference, and League of Women Voters of Michigan – included nine overly vague provisions that were perverted by the Legislature.
Taken together, the effort resulted in “both Civil Rights and Civil Liberties violations and a Deprivation of Rights under Color of Law against all legally eligible Citizen voters within the State of Michigan, by intentionally opening up election procedures that will result in legal ballots being cancelled by illegal ballots cast by legally ineligible voters from a variety of courses,” according to the lawsuit.
“The law guarantees that only ‘legally eligible Michigan voters’ be allowed to vote in Michigan elections, and that the State guarantees all legal citizen voters in Michigan secure, free, fair, lawful, and transparent elections,” it reads. “The measures taken in Proposal 22-2 and the subsequent new election statutes do the exact opposite.
Go Ad-Free, Get Content, Go Premium Today - $1 Trial
“The measure taken by the respondents herein, make it even more likely that Michigan will experience a flood of illegal and untraceable voting, depriving the rights of all legal citizens of the State to one-citizen, one-vote, making it impossible for the state or the court to provide the guarantee the people of Michigan a secure, free, fair, lawful, and transparent election process under these conditions.”
The coalition of voters is asking the Supreme Court to block the constitutional amendment and subsequently adopted election laws and to provide an interpretation of what Proposal 2 actually permits.
The voters want the Supreme Court to revert election laws to how they were prior to Proposal 2, to avoid a 2024 election that “will be altered in unclear and irreparable ways” without the court’s intervention.
“An election for public officials, including for each presidential term, is a one-time event with dramatic and often tangible and often unintended real-world consequences of how the nation will be managed and defended,” the lawsuit reads. “There is no compensation or remedy possible after the fact that can provide complete redress.”
The lawsuit is just the latest in a slew of lawsuits filed against Benson over how she drafts and imposes election rules in Michigan, with others focused on her circumventing the rule making process to impose restrictions on poll workers, the state’s bloated voter rolls that have 105% more registered voters than the voting age population, unconstitutional absentee voter signature verification guidance, and other issues.
Benson, meanwhile, has focused on campaigning for President Joe Biden and promoting voting to teens in Democratic areas.
Lansing Democrats approved legislation in June to prevent local election officials from investigating fraud that’s expected to receive Whitmer’s signature.
Republicans have countered by filing their own lawsuit with the Michigan Supreme Court that also aims to invalidate the 2022 ballot initiative, and a previous voting reform initiative in 2018, arguing those voter approved changes violate the US Constitution that prescribes the power to regulate the times, places and manner of federal elections to state legislatures.