A “Chinese student” faces felony criminal charges after Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson alleges the person registered to vote and cast a ballot in an Ann Arbor on Sunday.
“He registered to vote on Sunday using his UM student identification and other documentation establishing residency in Ann Arbor, he signed a document identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and his ballot was entered into a tabulator, according to the Secretary of State’s office,” according to the Detroit News.
Benson announced the charges of making an unauthorized attempt to vote and another of perjury for making a false affidavit to register to vote in a joint statement with Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit on Wednesday.
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“Only U.S. citizens can register and vote in our elections. It is illegal to lie on any registration forms or voting applications about one’s citizenship status,” the statement read in part. “Anyone who attempts to vote illegally faces significant consequences, including but not limited to arrest and prosecution.”
“Noncitizen voting is an extremely isolated and rare event. Investigations in multiple states and nationwide have found no evidence of large numbers of noncitizens registering to vote,” it claimed. “Even less common is a noncitizen actually casting a ballot. When it does happen, we take it extremely seriously. Our elections are secure and Michigan’s state and local election officials carefully follow the law.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel issued her own statement.
“My office is aware of the Ann Arbor voter fraud allegation and subsequent charges,” she said. “It is the responsibility of each and every resident of this state and nation to adhere to the law, and Michigan election law makes clear that non-citizens cannot vote in our elections.”
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“As with previous election-law related cases, the Department of Attorney General has commenced an independent, parallel investigation into this matter,” Nessel said.
Neither statement identified the voter. Media requests for Savit were referred to the Secretary of State, the Detroit Free Press reports.
The vote at issue in the case was cast at an early voting center mandated by a 2022 ballot referendum approved by deceived voters that requires at least nine days of early in-person voting. More than a half-million ballots have been cast at those early voting centers through Wednesday, according to the Michigan Voting Dashboard.
“The student’s ballot is expected to count in the upcoming election — although it was illegally cast — because there is no way for election officials to retrieve it once it’s been put through a tabulator, according to two sources familiar with Michigan election laws. The setup is meant to prevent ballots from being tracked back to an individual voter,” according to the Detroit News.
Election officials became aware of the ballot after the student contacted the local clerk’s office and asked for it back.
A state Supreme Court lawsuit from dozens of legal Michigan voters allege legislation enacting the ballot election reforms, and the way Benson implemented the changes, are “intentionally opening up election procedures that will result in legal ballots being canceled by illegal ballots cast by legally ineligible voters from a variety of courses.”
“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,” according to the lawsuit, which names Benson, Nessel, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and state election officials as defendants. “The measures taken in Proposal 22-2 and the subsequent new election statutes do the exact opposite.”
The attorneys for the plaintiffs point to at least seven separate court rulings that have found Benson’s election guidance unlawful.
On Tuesday, Michigan GOP Chairman Pete Hoekstra filed a complaint with the Michigan Bar against Benson that takes issue with how she’s “engaged in behavior that creates an appearance of impropriety and brings the legal profession into disrepute.”
Hoekstra cited Benson’s “historically large” $82,500 campaign contribution to Michigan Supreme Court Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, who provided the critical votes in key election cases involving Benson’s office, as well as Benson’s repeated violations of state election laws that undercut transparency and verification provisions.
Former Michigan Secretary of State Sen. Ruth Johnson, R-Holly, recently filed a similar complaint with the State Bar of Michigan’s Attorney Grievance Commission that focused in on Benson’s contradictory claims in court.
Johnson discussed the complaint, the controversial election reforms, and Michigan’s overinflated voter rolls and other issues on the Tudor Dixon Podcast this week.
Johnson noted the election reforms eliminated Michigan’s requirement for identification to vote, and “also enables people to register in the 14 days prior to the Election Day, and they can register without showing any ID,” Johnson said.
“We had over 20,000 people who did last time, but we have no real time system to check to see if they’re eligible to vote or if they’ve already voted in another location, and that includes in our state,” she said. “And we have nothing systemically to tell us whether they’ve voted out of state.”