Michigan Signature Petition Fraud Is Widespread – Opinion

Recent attention has been paid to Michigan’s petition signature collection for state candidates and its ballot initiative. Michigan is among those states in which candidates must gather certain numbers of signatures to be eligible to appear on the electoral roll.

Five candidates for the GOP primary election were recently disqualified after it emerged that many signatures they had received on the candidate petitions were fake. James Craig, former chief of police in Detroit was one of the candidates disqualified.

Fifteen thousand valid signatures were needed to qualify, but unfortunately for Craig — who many say was leading the race — ten thousand of his signatures were deemed fraudulent. Craig, an African American man, told conservative media that the election was being conducted fraudulently. “stolen”You can get it from him.

You may recall that I wrote you back in May about all the dirty tricks and shenanigans my organisation was engaging in. SecureMIVote.orgWhen trying to get signatures on a ballot initiative for photo identification, I encountered the following:

Opponents of an effort to expand Michigan’s voter identification requirements orchestrated a “scheme to pay off” petition circulators in violation of campaign finance laws, a complaint obtained by The Detroit News alleged. Dustin Wefel, a Michigan petition gatherer, was behind the complaint to the Secretary of State’s office, targeting Protect MI Vote, the group opposing the effort to institute new ID standards for elections. Wefel’s filing claimed Protect MI Vote worked with a consulting firm, Groundgame Political Solutions, to compensate petition gatherers, in part, so they wouldn’t assist the Secure MI Vote initiative, making it difficult for the group to advance its proposal. The payments weren’t properly disclosed in fundraising reports, the complaint alleged. Text messages were included in the filing, as well as a contract worth $50,000 betweenGroundgame & Wefel. Read more…

Despite the opposition’s shady efforts, we collected over 435,000 signatures by the June 1st deadline. We needed 95,000 signatures more than this. That’s the good news. Unfortunately, we found out that more than 20,000 of the signatures submitted were fake. One contract group signed over 17,000 signatures. Here’s a statement we received on June 1st from SecureMIVote.org spokesman Jamie Roe:

Even though the primary issue of our campaign is supported by over 80% of Michigan voters, this campaign faced many challenges right from its inception. We’ve had millions in national left wing dark money pour into Michigan solely focused on stopping us from making elections more secure. A Michigan Supreme Court decision was made right during our efforts. It had no bearing on our effort but required us to reprint all petitions we had. If we submit today, we are confident we have enough valid signatures to survive any challenge, but we wouldn’t have the cushion we need to be certain.

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to believe the same shady shenanigans that occurred with the nominating petitions for governor, also filtered into our efforts for a photo ID ballot initiative. The 17,000 false signatures we received will not stop the effort, but it will delay them temporarily. SecureMiVote.orgAnd Americans Support Citizen Voting don’t plan on taking this fraud lying down. It will not be dismissed as a cost of doing business. Our legal counsel is helping us to determine what types of charges may be brought and where they can be filed. Keep checking back!