Michigan’s voter rolls are under scrutiny less than three weeks from the Nov. 5 election, following a report the state has 500,000 more registered voters than people old enough to vote. The discrepancy has led to concerns about election integrity.
The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit in March after finding that 53 Michigan counties had registration rates of 100% or higher based on U.S. Census data.
Attorneys for the RNC wrote: “These voter registration rates are abnormally or, in the case of counties with greater than 100% registration, impossibly high.” While the lawsuit did not allege fraud, it argued the inflated rolls increase the opportunity for it. The suit also claims that inflated rolls cause political parties to spend more money on mailers and other voter outreach.
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who’s been named in several lawsuits, maintains the state is in compliance with federal law and that the lawsuits are part of a broader effort to undermine confidence in the election process.
A spokeswoman for Benson said the legal complaints are an effort to “lay the groundwork to overturn the results of the election if they don’t like them.”
Secretaries of state are required by law to maintain clean voter rolls by removing people who have died, moved, been convicted of a felony, or have otherwise become ineligible to vote.
Benson’s office has removed approximately 800,000 voters since 2019 and plans to remove another 360,000 in 2025. Still, more than 200,000 new voters have registered since the RNC lawsuit was filed, further complicating the issue.