A new lawsuit has been filed against MI SOS Jocelyn Benson and Jonathan Brater, Director of the MI Bureau of Elections.
Jocelyn Benson has already lost ten lawsuits to date, and the number will likely continue to climb as she continues to thumb her nose at those who attempt to secure our elections in advance of Nov. 5, 2024.
Why have so many lawsuits been filed against the MI SOS?
Why doesn’t Jocelyn Benson want to ensure our elections are conducted in such a way that there can be no question they are open, transparent, fair, and above all, safe from election interference by a particular party, foreign nation, or outside group?
Shouldn’t a state’s top election official make it his or her responsibility to ensure that every election official implements basic requirements like voter identification, verification of US citizenship, and signature and address verification? Don’t Michigan voters deserve the right to feel comfortable knowing that no dead voter is voting on the voter rolls, outside, third-party groups are not attempting to register dogs, US Postal workers aren’t dropping off stacks of ballots in drop boxes in strict violation of the USPS rules, election officials or workers are not manipulating voter rolls, and that eligible voters are allowed to vote ONCE in our elections?
Why would any Secretary of State fight to stop those safeguards from being implemented?
Last week, I spoke at the Monroe Co., MI GOP Lincoln Day Dinner with the Babylon Bee’s Managing Editor, Joel Berry. During my speech, I explained how easy it is for UOACAVA non-military voters to cheat in our elections. The next day, Berry tweeted about the UOCAVA scam and included screenshots from my first article in a series that warned of an untraceable way for potentially unidentified voters to cheat using only a computer or smartphone.
Elon Musk re-posted Berry’s message asking, “Is this true?” President Donald J. Trump also shared our investigative reporting at the Gateway Pundit, telling RNC lawyers, “STOP THIS FRAUD NOW!!!”
Curiously, the Democrats have made public their plan to obtain 1.7 million new voter registrations from swing state “voters” via overseas (UOCAVA) votes in the 2024 election, including 264,256 in the state of Michigan.
Now, the MIGOP and RNC have joined together to challenge the constitutionality of Michigan SOS Jocelyn Benson’s guidance, allowing overseas or UOCAVA voters who have never resided in Michigan to register to vote in Michigan.
The lawsuit simply states that, according to our constitution, ONLY Michigan residents can vote in our elections:
The Michigan Constitution allows Michigan residents—and only Michigan residents—to vote. See Const. 1963, art. 2, § 1 (“Every citizen of the United States who has attained the age of 21 years, who has resided in this state six months, and who meets the requirements of local residence provided by law, shall be an elector and qualified to vote in any election except as otherwise provided in this constitution. The legislature shall define residence for voting purposes.”)
The lawsuit continues:
Thus, while the right to vote in Michigan is “an absolute constitutional right,” “certain requirements must be met before an individual can exercise his or her fundamental political right to vote.”
Congress enacted the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, 52 U.S.C. § 20301, et seq. (“UOCAVA”), to ensure that members of the United States Armed Forces and other American citizens who live outside America’s territory may register and vote in federal elections. UOCAVA provides that a member of the armed forces or an overseas citizen may vote in the state in which they previously resided. See 52 U.S.C. § 20301(1), (5). UOCAVA has the effect of partially preempting State residency requirements for some overseas voters.
Despite the Constitution’s unambiguous adjure that no person may vote in Michigan unless they reside in Michigan, the Secretary of State has distributed guidance that “AUnited States citizen who has never resided in the United States but who has a parent, legal guardian, or spouse who was last domiciled in Michigan is eligible to vote in Michigan as long as the citizen has not registered or voted in another state.” Election Officials Manual, Chapter 7: Military and Overseas Voters, Federal Voter Registration and Absent Voting Programs guidance
On its face, Chapter 7 extends voter qualifications to individuals who have never resided in Michigan. As a result, certain people who have never resided in Michigan (or perhaps anywhere else in this country) are registering to vote and voting in Michigan elections. Michigan election officials have registered persons to vote who have never resided in Michigan and have allowed them to vote in Michigan’s state and federal elections.
This is a violation of the Michigan Constitution, and, as applied to Plaintiffs, it dilutes their votes and harms their organizational missions.
The lawsuit explains how MI SOS Benson’s guidance harms Chesterfield Twp City Clerk Cindy Berry, who is being asked to violate her oath of office to uphold the MI Constitution while being bound to the MI SOS instructions.
Moreover, Chapter 7 subjects Cindy Berry to competing obligations. On the one hand, she takes an oath to uphold the Michigan Constitution; on the other hand, she is bound by the Secretary’s instructions. See MCL 168.765a(17) (“The secretary of state shall develop instructions consistent with this act . . . The instructions developed under this subsection are binding on the operation of an absent voter counting board or combined absent voter counting board used in an election conducted by a county, city, or township.”). Plaintiffs thus seek declaratory relief that Chapter 7 misstates the law and that under the Michigan Constitution, only persons who reside in Michigan may vote in Michigan.
The lawsuit explains how counting ballots of intelligible voters who never lived in Michigan will result in an inaccurate tally of the votes cast by legitimate voters. Furthermore, since an overwhelming number of overseas voters vote for Democrats, this scheme to register voters who have never lived in Michigan will affect the outcome of what should be a free and fair election.
Counting ballots of ineligible overseas voters who never resided in Michigan will result in an inaccurate tally of votes. Moreover, overseas voters overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates.3 Ex. C. Thus, counting the ballots of ineligible overseas voters will disproportionally harm Republican candidates and undermine the Republican candidates’ rights to a fair and accurate electoral count. It will also dilute the lawful votes cast by Plaintiffs’ members and voters.
The Republican Committees also spend significant resources to preserve voter confidence and turnout. These efforts are harmed when voters see that election officials accept absent voter ballots without verifying the residency of the voter as required under the Michigan Constitution.
Instead of addressing legitimate election security issues, MI SOS Jocelyn Benson has been on a public relations tour, making “election violence and threats” with little to no evidence of her claims, her top talking point about the upcoming election. Stay tuned for a full report on this topic, which will be coming soon at the Gateway Pundit.
