Declassified Docs Detail Michigan Voter Registration Fraud

Mollie Hemingway was right. The 2020 election was rigged.

The Federalist’s editor-in-chief in her 2021 book, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections, laid out a compelling case that some big corrupting forces used Covid fear to get their man — Joe Biden — elected in 2020.

In his address to the nation Thursday evening, President Donald Trump walked through some of the more egregious attacks on election integrity and security in a 2020 election that government bureaucrats absurdly declared “the most secure in American history.” And Trump brought the receipts.

During his primetime address, the White House released four tranches of newly declassified documents from intelligence community files, overseen by the White House Government Transparency Taskforce. The records expose China’s meddling in the election and point to hundreds of thousands of noncitizens on state voter rolls.

“The president’s news is shocking but not surprising given prior hacks of U.S. data by the Chinese. But what should make Americans very angry is the cover-up to hide what happened and the failure to prosecute wrongdoers for obvious politically partisan reasons,” Hans von Spakovsky, senior fellow at Advancing American Freedom, told The Federalist.

Some of the more damning documents come from the FBI’s investigation into a leftist voter registration scheme in swing state Michigan, where Democrat Joe Biden, as he did in other battlegrounds, claimed a narrow victory. The declassified records offer a window into a massive voter registration fraud operation in Muskegon, Michigan, and a years-long investigation that tracked as many as 10,000 suspicious or forged registration forms submitted in the weeks before election. They also undercut the real Big Lie by Democrats and their accomplice media pals, that election administration in the 2020 election is beyond reproach.

The probe involved thousands of man hours that included interviews with former employees of a canvassing company that witnesses say signed off on fictitious registrations and hired registration form pirates who traded marijuana and cash for voter regulation applications.

Trump said the Biden Justice Department slow-walked and eventually killed the case. The documents suggest the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity section did just that. Then Michigan’s leftist attorney general refused to press charges because the fraudulent activity was discovered and broken up before Election Day.

“Tonight, I am asking the FBI director to ensure the matter is fully investigated and to work with the Department of Justice to prosecute those responsible for any crimes,” Trump said.

‘Red Flags’

According to emails from the case file, the Muskegon Police Department was investigating suspicious registration forms flooding into the Muskegon City Clerk’s office in the weeks leading up to the election. State and federal law enforcement got involved in early October. On Oct. 5, the clerk’s office received six packages of voter registration applications via the U.S. Postal Service, an FBI email notes.

Muskegon elections officials determined that “some of the applications were fraudulent based on nonexistent addresses, invalid telephone numbers and signatures on applications not matching Michigan Secretary of State voting or DMV records,” the document states. Curiously, the forms appeared to have been completed in the same hand-writing.

The documents were delivered by one individual and arrived from the same address. That information is redacted. There are a lot of redactions in the files.The same individual hand-delivered numerous applications “with similar red flags,” according to the agency. Investigators estimated that the registration wrangler submitted “approximately 8,000 to 10,000 applications.”

FBI agents interviewed former employees of the registration form collector, approximately 100, and others, according to one email.

One woman told law enforcement officials that she worked for an organization (redacted). She said she was paid for voter registration work. Most of the frontline workers received prepaid debit cards for their efforts, records show.

“She was involved in similar registration drives in Detroit, Ypsilanti, Southfield, Flint, and Lansing,” the FBI email states. A data search revealed that she worked in 2018 for a candidate campaigning for Georgia’s 7th Congressional District seat, agents reported. The woman was paid $52,000 for “field consulting” and canvassing.

The case was being prosecuted by Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a highly partisan Democrat, the FBI communication states.

‘Easy Money’

One former employer told FBI agents that her bosses required her to submit “two to 3 applications to get paid.”

“Most of the employees submitted the registrations with false information because it was easy money,” the former form wrangler told investigators, according to one email.

In an interview on Dec 18, 2023, more than three years after the shenanigans-filled presidential election, one former employee told FBI agents that she knew of other canvassers “who would trade marijuana and money for voter registration applications.”

Employees told the law enforcement officials that canvassers were instructed, “if they couldn’t get enough applications, they should just fill them in.”

“This occurred at a meeting with over 100 employees present,” an email states. One of the employees asked what the company official meant. He picked up a blank application and filled it out, making up information and said, “This is what I mean,” the investigation records claim.

One former employee estimated she submitted 100 fake voter registration applications.

‘Failed to Charge’

The investigation plodded along, in fits and starts at times.

In a memo dated, Thursday Aug. 12, 2021, FBI agents were told by DOJ higher ups that “no further action should be taken in this district at this time.”

One agent in particular fought to keep the investigation alive. In a redacted email, the FBI official noted that investigators were preparing to close the probe.

“Before I do so, I was hoping to discuss with you the limited scope that PIN (Public Integrity section) approved in the investigation of the fraudulent voter registration applications,” the agent wrote. “It appears as though this type of fraud would result in a full field investigation.”

The agent’s arguments appear to have won out. Records show the investigation resumed. But nobody was ever held accountable. In 2023, Republicans in the Michigan House of Representative introduced articles of impeachment against Nessel, who, according to the lawmakers, “violated her constitutional oath of office by failing to faithfully discharge the duties of her office.”

“Despite the fact that an October 2020 investigation found evidence that an organization submitted clearly fraudulent voter registration applications to the Muskegon City Clerk, Attorney General Nessel has failed to charge those responsible for forging and filing these documents,” the resolution stated.

The Michigan State Police, which worked with Nessel’s office on the state probe into the fraud allegations, covered for the controversial attorney general.

“[N]one of the irregular voter registrations in Muskegon resulted in voters receiving absentee ballots, any resulting registrations have been voided, and there is no expected impact on any election,” the law enforcement agency said in a statement.

‘Private Takeover’

Michigan played a pivotal role in deciding the closely contested 2020 election. It also was plagued with election irregularities that created confusion and raised doubts about the state’s election administration. Far-left Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, like election officials in other swing states, opened Michigan’s election administration doors to massive amounts of Zuckbucks — and the leftist political operatives that came with it.

The state received approximately $8 million in election safety grants distributed by the Center for Technology and Civic Life, a leftist election group founded by former Obama campaign staff, Detroit, a Democrat stronghold, received the biggest chunk: $3.5 million. CTCL raked in an eye-popping $350 million in funding from Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, money used in large part for a get-out-the vote drive targeting liberal voters. The groups in the CTCL network were deeply engaged in voter registration efforts.

Several states have banned private money in election administration. Michigan is not one of them.

In her testimony before the House Administration Committee in 2024, Hemingway warned of the takeover of election administration by politically motivated private entities.

“Instead of having election administration that is rigorously nonpartisan and impartial under the law, we have allowed the private takeover of government election offices by partisan oligarchs and their armies of activists who use those offices and their authorities to tilt the election toward favored candidates,” The Federalist’s editor-in-chief said.

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.