{"id":1623483,"date":"2022-08-26T16:47:42","date_gmt":"2022-08-26T20:47:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1623483"},"modified":"2022-08-26T16:48:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T20:48:02","slug":"judge-denies-michigan-secretary-of-states-motion-to-dismiss-lawsuit-removing-26000-dead-registrants-from-voter-rolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judge-denies-michigan-secretary-of-states-motion-to-dismiss-lawsuit-removing-26000-dead-registrants-from-voter-rolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Denies Michigan Secretary of State\u2019s Motion To Dismiss Lawsuit Removing 26,000 Dead Registrants From Voter Rolls"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">34<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjudge-denies-michigan-secretary-of-states-motion-to-dismiss-lawsuit-removing-26000-dead-registrants-from-voter-rolls%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1623483&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>In a win for election integrity advocates, the United States Western District Court of Michigan\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/2022-08-25-Opinion-And-Order-dckt-35_0.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">denied<\/a> Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson\u2019s attempt at dismissing Public Interest Legal Foundation\u2019s (PILF)\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Doc-1-PILF-v.-Benson-Complaint.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0pertaining to the failure to remove dead registrants from the state\u2019s voter rolls. The court also dismissed motions to intervene from leftist groups, such as the A. Philip Randolph Institute, the Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans, and Rise, Inc.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, PILF had notified the Secretary of State\u2019s office about dead registrants remaining on Michigan\u2019s voter rolls, but Benson did nothing about it. In November 2021, the nonprofit filed a lawsuit against Benson for her failure to remove 25,975 deceased registrants from voter lists.<\/p>\n<p>According to PILF\u2019s own analysis of the 25,975 deceased registrants:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>23,663 registrants have been dead for five years or more<\/li>\n<li>17,479 registrants have been dead for at least a decade<\/li>\n<li>3,956 registrants have been dead for at least 20 years<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>PILF\u2019s lawsuit contends that by refusing to clean Michigan\u2019s voter rolls, Benson violated Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires officials to \u201cconduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Michigan is also a member of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/08\/11\/democratic-operatives-control-voter-rolls-in-31-states-report-shows\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">ERIC<\/a>, a voter-roll maintenance organization that ostensibly cleans state voter rolls \u2014 meaning the deceased registrants should have been removed long ago.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe should not have to sue Secretary of State Benson to get her to do her job,\u201d PILF spokeswoman Lauren Bowman told The Federalist.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first time Benson\u2019s been criticized for her job performance. Back in June 2020, the Michigan Freedom Fund\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bridgemi.com\/michigan-government\/lawsuit-jocelyn-benson-allowing-suspiciously-high-voter-registration-rates\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sued Benson and 16 other county clerks<\/a>\u00a0for neglecting to maintain accurate voter records. Benson is also known for inflating Michigan\u2019s voter rolls: in September 2020, she sent out\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/content.govdelivery.com\/accounts\/MISOS\/bulletins\/2a4effc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">automatic voter registration forms<\/a>\u00a0to all eligible citizens. As a result of the mailer, 114,000 people were added to Michigan\u2019s voter rolls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is astonishing that Secretary Benson is so vigorously opposing effective list maintenance,\u201d PILF President Christian Adams said in a press release regarding the lawsuit. \u201cIt\u2019s remarkable that after sharing this data with the Secretary of State in 2020, dead registrants remained on the state\u2019s voter rolls. This initial win is the first step to ensuring that deceased registrants are not receiving ballots and reducing the opportunity for fraud in Michigan\u2019s elections.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Last year, the Foundation\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/press\/lawsuit-to-remove-dead-voters-in-pennsylvania-ends-with-win-for-election-integrity\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">won a similar lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against Pennsylvania, which compelled the Commonwealth to remove at least 21,000 dead registrants from its voter rolls.<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-comments mt-30 mt-sm-60\">\n<div class=\"article-comments-container d-flex flex-column align-items-center py-30\">\n    <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"110\" height=\"106\" src=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/12\/fdrlst-mark.svg\" class=\"img-fluid mb-20\" alt=\"The Federalist logo eagle mark\" \/>    <\/p>\n<p>Unlock commenting by joining the Federalist Community.<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/plans\/pricing\/\" class=\"btn btn-on-white\">Subscribe<\/a>  <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a win for election integrity advocates, the United States Western District Court of Michigan\u00a0denied Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson\u2019s attempt at dismissing Public Interest Legal Foundation\u2019s (PILF)\u00a0lawsuit\u00a0pertaining to<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1130,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1623483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1130"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1623483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1623483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1623483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1623483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1623483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}