LANSING, MI - Earlier in the month of April, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) announced that after conducting a review of voter rolls, 15 non-citizens had voted in the November 2024 election. However, weeks later it was revealed that the review of non-citizens on the voter rolls only included those with driver's licenses, excluding any who registered to vote without a driver's license or another form of identification.
According to Just The News, Benson's team explained that it would take very long to identify active voters without identification, raising concerns amongst election integrity advocates about non-citizens being on the voter rolls. One Michigan election integrity advocate warned that this shows the state is not verifying the citizenship of voters.
Back in September 2024, Benson told the House Administration Committee during an election integrity hearing that "we're doing everything we can to ensure that non-citizens are not able to vote and that only U.S. citizens vote in our election, and it's working."
She added, "There is no evidence that non-citizens are voting. If they were, it would be easy to prove since voter records are public and despite numerous organizations spending a lot of money to try to convince people that non-citizens are voting, none of these groups have actually been able to provide any evidence of it."
The very next month, in October 2024, a Chinese foreign national student at the University of Michigan turned himself in after saying that he registered to vote and cast a ballot in the general election during early voting. That student was charged with two felonies: false swearing to register to vote and trying to vote as an unqualified elector.
Following that incident, Benson reached out to her team to coordinate messaging and find out how many registered voters did or did not have identification or a driver's license during the voting.
According to an October 28, 2024 text message between Benson, her chief of staff, the director of elections, the chief communication officer, the chief legal director, and the deputy secretary of state, it takes multiple hours or days to search the Qualified Voter File (QVF) for registered voters who are active and do not have a driver's license or identification affiliated with their record.
The text messages were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Detroit News. Benson texted the group, "I need to know the number of active registered voters who don't have a license of ID affiliated with their record. And if possible we need to know the number in that universe who voted in 2020. Just for raw data right now please."
There were a few messages in response amongst the group with Director of Elections Jonathan Brater responding, "We need to be prepared for a statement without a number. We can't get an accurate number immediately, it is a very complicated query that takes many hours minimum. I agree with Tina [Anderson] that raw number is not likely to be helpful."
While Benson's team said that obtaining the data would take a long time, Tim Mauro-Vetter, co-chair of Michigan Fair Elections Institute's (MFEI) Data Evaluation Election Process team said, "I can give you the number of registered, active voters, but the QVF that is available to the public includes no information about driver's licenses, citizenship, or photo ID. That data is simply not available ... to the public."
He said, "If the state had the data and made it public, I could provide the information in under a minute." He then analyzed the publicly available data and said he found the total number of registered voters with an active status in 38 seconds.
The review of the voter rolls, which was released in the beginning of April, found that 15 non-citizens had voted and 13 of them were referred to the Michigan attorney general for potential criminal charges. One of the two non-citizens who weren't referred to the attorney general's office has died, and the other is being investigated by the Michigan state department's Office of Investigative Services.
Benson said in a statement, "This is a serious issue, one we must address with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Only U.S. citizens can legally register and vote in our elections. Our careful review confirms what we already know, that this illegal activity is very rare."
However, the state's review of the voter rolls only focused on those registered with ID. The Detroit News reported, "The vast majority of Michigan voters register through their driver's license or state ID, which were the focus of the ne review. However, Michigan voters also have the option of showing a driver's license from another state, another government-issued ID, a U.S. passport, a military ID, a tribal ID, or a student ID."
The paper added, "That's why Gao, the Chinese student who allegedly voted illegally in November's election, and other voters likely weren't part of the new review. He used his University of Michigan student ID and other documentation establishing residency in Ann Arbor before signing a document falsely identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and entering his ballot into a tabulator in the fall, according to state and local election officials."
According to Just The News, Benson's team explained that it would take very long to identify active voters without identification, raising concerns amongst election integrity advocates about non-citizens being on the voter rolls. One Michigan election integrity advocate warned that this shows the state is not verifying the citizenship of voters.
Back in September 2024, Benson told the House Administration Committee during an election integrity hearing that "we're doing everything we can to ensure that non-citizens are not able to vote and that only U.S. citizens vote in our election, and it's working."
She added, "There is no evidence that non-citizens are voting. If they were, it would be easy to prove since voter records are public and despite numerous organizations spending a lot of money to try to convince people that non-citizens are voting, none of these groups have actually been able to provide any evidence of it."
The very next month, in October 2024, a Chinese foreign national student at the University of Michigan turned himself in after saying that he registered to vote and cast a ballot in the general election during early voting. That student was charged with two felonies: false swearing to register to vote and trying to vote as an unqualified elector.
Following that incident, Benson reached out to her team to coordinate messaging and find out how many registered voters did or did not have identification or a driver's license during the voting.
According to an October 28, 2024 text message between Benson, her chief of staff, the director of elections, the chief communication officer, the chief legal director, and the deputy secretary of state, it takes multiple hours or days to search the Qualified Voter File (QVF) for registered voters who are active and do not have a driver's license or identification affiliated with their record.
The text messages were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the Detroit News. Benson texted the group, "I need to know the number of active registered voters who don't have a license of ID affiliated with their record. And if possible we need to know the number in that universe who voted in 2020. Just for raw data right now please."
There were a few messages in response amongst the group with Director of Elections Jonathan Brater responding, "We need to be prepared for a statement without a number. We can't get an accurate number immediately, it is a very complicated query that takes many hours minimum. I agree with Tina [Anderson] that raw number is not likely to be helpful."
While Benson's team said that obtaining the data would take a long time, Tim Mauro-Vetter, co-chair of Michigan Fair Elections Institute's (MFEI) Data Evaluation Election Process team said, "I can give you the number of registered, active voters, but the QVF that is available to the public includes no information about driver's licenses, citizenship, or photo ID. That data is simply not available ... to the public."
He said, "If the state had the data and made it public, I could provide the information in under a minute." He then analyzed the publicly available data and said he found the total number of registered voters with an active status in 38 seconds.
The review of the voter rolls, which was released in the beginning of April, found that 15 non-citizens had voted and 13 of them were referred to the Michigan attorney general for potential criminal charges. One of the two non-citizens who weren't referred to the attorney general's office has died, and the other is being investigated by the Michigan state department's Office of Investigative Services.
Benson said in a statement, "This is a serious issue, one we must address with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer. Only U.S. citizens can legally register and vote in our elections. Our careful review confirms what we already know, that this illegal activity is very rare."
However, the state's review of the voter rolls only focused on those registered with ID. The Detroit News reported, "The vast majority of Michigan voters register through their driver's license or state ID, which were the focus of the ne review. However, Michigan voters also have the option of showing a driver's license from another state, another government-issued ID, a U.S. passport, a military ID, a tribal ID, or a student ID."
The paper added, "That's why Gao, the Chinese student who allegedly voted illegally in November's election, and other voters likely weren't part of the new review. He used his University of Michigan student ID and other documentation establishing residency in Ann Arbor before signing a document falsely identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and entering his ballot into a tabulator in the fall, according to state and local election officials."
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Comments
2025-04-29T18:52-0400 | Comment by: Bill
I don't know about MI, but in CA it is probably a million illegals voting. They don't check ID's so that may be the least of the problem...