“There is no evidence that noncitizens are voting,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told Congress in September.
On Thursday, Benson announced that a total of at least 15 incidents of illegal voting occurred in Michigan during the 2024 General Election, based on a cross reference between Michigan motor vehicle records and the state’s Qualified Voter File.
That review covered the vast majority of voters who cast ballots using their driver’s license or state ID, but omitted plenty of others who used a different form of identification, such as tribal or student IDs.
“This is a serious issue, one we must address with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer,” Benson said in a statement. “Only U.S. citizens can legally register and vote in our elections. Our careful review confirms what we already knew – that this illegal activity is very rare.
“While we take all violations of election law very seriously, this tiny fraction of potential cases in Michigan and at the national level do not justify recent efforts to pass laws we know would block tens of thousands of Michigan citizens from voting in future elections,” she said.
Benson’s comments to Congress came about a month before Haoxiang Gao, a University of Michigan student from China, cast an illegal ballot in Washtenaw County using his student ID. The case, exposed only after Gao attempted unsuccessfully to retrieve his ballot, is the product of expanded voting privileges in Michigan that make it impossible to verify identification before votes are tallied.
Gao’s vote was counted in the 2024 election, along with 15 others identified by Benson this week. The limited scope of the Secretary of State’s review suggests others are likely, as it did not cover folks who voted with alternative IDs and many noncitizens do not have driver’s licenses or state issued identification.
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“First it was 1, now it’s 15,” state Rep. Bryan Posthumus, R-Rockford, posted to X. “The truth is, we have no idea how many. And now that everyone knows the loophole exists, how many more if we don’t close it!”
“Remember, the 2000 election was decided by just 527 votes,” he wrote. “Every legal vote matters.”
Posthumus, the House Majority floor leader, introduced House Joint Resolution B in February to require proof of citizenship to register and a photo ID to vote. The legislation would also provide free photo IDs to citizens experiencing hardship.
“What the constitutional amendment does is it builds in the guardrails that will make it so a foreign national can no longer vote,” Posthumus said in February.
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“If Lansing doesn’t fix this, WE THE PEOPLE will,” the voter advocacy group Prove It Michigan! vows on its website. “If the Michigan Legislature won’t pass this constitutional amendment to put it to a vote of the people, we’ll launch a drive to collect the signatures it takes for voters to fix this once and for all.”
Similar legislation is making its way through Washington, and Benson opposes both state and national efforts to require ID despite her own records documenting noncitizen voting.
“The review, which began in December 2024, identified 15 people who appear to be non-U.S. citizens and cast a ballot in the 2024 General Election. Of these 15, 13 were referred to the Michigan Attorney General for potential criminal charges, one apparent noncitizen voter has since died, and one case is will being investigated by the MDOS Office of Investigative Services,” according to the Secretary of State.
“These cases, along with the single case identified in October 2024 of a Chinese national who allegedly voted illegally, represent 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million votes cast by Michiganders in the presidential election.”
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The focus on minimizing the impact of illegal voting is a theme Benson has stressed since October, when text messages obtained by The Detroit News reveal the Secretary of State urged her staff to insist the issue is “not widespread.”
“Dana and I talked earlier also want to weave in — you’re going to see significant consequences unfold for this gentleman, that should be a deterrent,” Benson texted in reference to Attorney General Dana Nessel and Gao.
Benson, who is overseeing her own election to replace Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in 2026, wanted election officials to frame Gao “as a liar and a lawbreaker not us,” according to The News.
The Secretary of State’s confirmation of illegal voting on Thursday came the same day Nessel joined AGs in 18 other states in suing President Donald Trump over an executive order aimed at eliminating illegal votes.
“The President has no power to do any of this,” Nessel and her colleagues from blue states wrote in court documents cited by The Detroit News. “The Elections EO is unconstitutional, antidemocratic, and un-American.”
Trump’s executive order required proof of citizenship when registering to vote and demands all mail in ballots by Election Day, and imposes the potential loss of federal funding for election officials who refuse to comply.