Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has presided over “multiple and continued failures that undermine the confidence of voters in Michigan,” according to election experts.

In a Monday report from the Fair Election Fund, the election integrity nonprofit gave the 2026 gubernatorial candidate a D- for the “administration of elections and enforcement of existing laws.”

“The Fair Election Fund’s analysis of Secretary Benson’s election administration determined a failing grade for her performance due to multiple and continued failures that undermine the confidence of voters in Michigan,” the report read. “This includes frequently being struck down in court for issuing instructions inconsistent with Michigan law, being reprimanded by several Federal judges for her partisan interference in ballot access, creating the appearance of impropriety that has resulted in Michigan Bar review of her actions, and a voter registration list in Michigan that is way behind other states in maintenance to remove non-Michigan citizens.”

The D- for administration is one of five components analyzed by FEF, which graded Benson’s performance a D overall. Other grades included a D for transparency, F for “impartial, professional and independent election administration,” and C-s for both “leadership to instill confidence in election results,” and “quality of the voter registration list.”

The report points to numerous lawsuits and legal complaints, particularly those involving her repeated guidance to local election clerks to presume the validity of absentee voter signatures.

“Secretary Benson’s most egregious action that was struck down by the courts was an attempt to eliminate a safeguard created by the legislature to ensure the person who cast a mail ballot is the actual voter. Secretary Benson instructed county clerks that they should presume a signature on a ballot envelope is valid unless proven otherwise,” according to the report, which noted the presumption was intentionally omitted from statute by the legislature.

“This was particularly egregious because this is not the first time Secretary Benson had attempted to create a presumption of validity for signatures – it was at minimum her third attempt,” the report read.

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FEF points to the inclusion of the presumption in guidance to clerks in 2020 that was ruled unlawful and a violation of the state’s administrative procedures act. The following year, Benson attempted to draft a rule including the presumption but withdrew the proposal amid a bipartisan backlash.

“Thus, in 2024 when she told county clerks to presume signatures were valid, she was doing what a court had already struck down, what bipartisan stakeholders had told her not to, and what she said she would not do,” according to the report.

The lawsuits over Benson’s presumed validity advice were “not merely the result of the differing priorities of the major political parties, with Republicans emphasizing encouraging confidence in elections through transparency and verification, and Democrats prioritizing ease of voting,” researchers wrote. “Instead, these actions give the appearance of a complete disregard for the rule of law and contempt for statutorily mandated election safeguards.”

Benson in January announced she will oversee her own election to replace Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2026, and has promoted herself as the queen of transparency in the months since.

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The FEF report, however, outlines Benson’s concerning efforts to create barriers to election oversight through restrictions on election challengers, and a large political donation through her Michigan Legacy PAC to a sitting Michigan Supreme Court justice who ultimately cast the deciding vote to override two lower court orders in Benson’s favor.

It also details the Secretary of State’s repeated refusals to proactively purge the state’s bloated voter rolls, and multiple lawsuits that attempted to force her to do so. That issue is tied to others in the report, including the Secretary of State’s failure to prevent noncitizens from voting.

Other issues highlighted by FEF center on public statements threatening Michiganders, inconsistent enforcement of campaign finance laws, and attempts to manipulate the presidential ballot.

While Benson champions secure elections and accessible voting, she continues to block access for lawmakers to review her office’s training materials for county clerks, and campaign against efforts to require proof of citizenship to vote, despite her own admission 16 noncitizens voted in Michigan last year.

That admission prompted a public information request from The Federalist for the locations of the noncitizen votes, with a focus on the University of Michigan. Unsurprisingly, Benson refuses to release the public information, alleging it would “interfere with law enforcement proceedings” and cause problems for “candid policy making communications.”

Other previously public campaign finance information is also no longer accessible thanks to Benson’s $9.3 million “Michigan Transparency Network.”

Last March, Benson announced a new Michigan Transparency Network “will be upgraded to a consolidated reporting system that will make personal financial disclosure, campaign finance, lobbying and legal defense fund information publicly available in one convenient, easy-to-use web portal.”

When reporters attempted to use the revamped site earlier this month, what they found was something else.

“The revamped campaign finance page is much more inefficient & cumbersome to navigate from what I can tell in the early attempts to do so,” Nick Smith, Senate reporter for Gongwer News Service, posted to X.

“When words and deeds conflict, trust the deeds,” James David Dickson, a podcast host for Michigan Enjoyer, wrote in another post to X.

“Jocelyn Benson talks transparency,” he wrote. “Then she demands logins for campaign finance reports and asks the AG how little financial disclosure she can get away with. We’ve seen this movie before with Whitmer re: FOIA requests.”