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Five of Michigan’s 10 Republican gubernatorial nominees are barred from voting because of invalid signatures on their nomination petitions, the Michigan Electoral Bureau said in a report Monday, suspending the race just over two months before the August primary. .
Those the bureau said were ineligible include former Detroit police chief James Craig and businessman Perry Johnson, who are considered leading candidates for the Republican nomination for governor of Michigan. Others were Donna Brandenburg, Michael Brown and Michael Markie.
The Michigan State Council, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, will meet Thursday morning to discuss the Bureau’s report and decide whether candidates can run in the Aug. 2 primary.
State investigators have identified 36 people who distributed petitions, “who sent fake petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures,” according to a report from the polling station released Monday night.
“In total, the Bureau estimates that these distributors have submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures submitted in 10 sets of nomination petitions,” the report said. “In several cases, the number of invalid signatures submitted by these distributors was the reason why the candidate had an insufficient number of valid signatures.”
The gubernatorial candidates had to collect at least 15,000 valid signatures to appear on the ballot. According to the polling station, Craig’s campaign submitted 11,113 invalid signatures and only 10,192 “valid on the face”, while Johnson’s campaign submitted 9,393 invalid signatures and 13,800 face-to-face signatures, leaving both below the required threshold.
The Bureau’s investigation also found that Brandenburg’s campaign had submitted 11,144 invalid signatures and 6,634 in person; Brown’s campaign submitted 13,809 invalid signatures and 7,091 invalid signatures; and Markie’s campaign submitted 17,374 invalid signatures and 4,430 invalid signatures.
The election bureau noted that this level of fraud – both in terms of the number of invalid signatures submitted and the number of campaigns affected – was unprecedented. Some fraudulent petition sheets usually show “no evidence of normal wear and tear” or show evidence that they were at a “round table”, a practice in which each person in a group takes turns signing a line of petition in an attempt to make the signatures authentic. said the bureau.
The report comes as former President Donald Trump ruthlessly perpetuates the refuted, baseless claim that widespread voter fraud is worth re-electing him in 2020.
Johnson said he shared “Trump’s concerns about election security” and attended a fundraiser with the former president for his fellow Republican in Mar-a-Lago in March. Craig tried to distance himself more from Trump’s allegations of voter fraud, but said he would support a “thorough audit” of the 2020 election results and accept Trump’s approval if offered.
The election bureau said it had no reason to believe that specific candidates or campaigns knew their petitions were being spread fraudulently, but made recommendations to disqualify five of them based on whether a candidate met the 15,000 signature threshold. , after the invalid signatures were removed from their petitions.
Mark Brewer, a former chairman of the Michigan Democratic Party who filed a lawsuit challenging Craig’s nomination petition last month, told Bridge Michigan: “The evidence just keeps piling up a large-scale falsification scheme.
In a statement Monday, Johnson called for reforms in the petitions nomination process, saying he was “fatally wrong”.
“Criminals can commit fraud for money or by deliberately infiltrating a victim of a campaign with illegitimate signatures in a Machiavellian attempt by the opposing side to later remove them from the vote,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, the signatures provided to the campaigns cannot currently be verified before they are submitted to the Secretary of State. That must change immediately. “
John Jobs, a Johnson consultant, said in a series of tweets that the campaign would take the case to court if necessary and present itself as one of the victims of the forgers.
“The Democratic Secretary of State’s staff [State] “It has no right to unilaterally revoke any signature obtained from alleged counterfeiters who are victims of five campaigns,” Job said. “We strongly believe that they are refusing to count the thousands of signatures of legitimate voters who signed the petitions, and we look forward to winning this battle in front of the board and, if necessary, in court.
Brown, a Marine veteran and commander of the Southwest Michigan County State Police, announced on Tuesday that he was immediately withdrawing from the race for governor.
“It seems that after the collection of my campaign signatures was over, those who signed independent contracts for part of our signature collection and validation jumped into other campaigns and took money,” Brown said in a statement. “They were involved in alleged fraudulent signature collection activities with these campaigns, prompting the Michigan Electoral Bureau to declare all signatures related to these individuals invalid. I cannot and will not be involved in this activity. “
The Republican nominee will face Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D), who is running for a new term.
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