By Brentin Mock
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is demanding that Wayne County, Michigan turn over its ballots from the 2024 election to investigate voter fraud claims. Michigan’s attorney general and secretary of state have responded saying that’s not going to happen.
The call for Wayne County’s ballots is the latest such demand from DOJ, which has obtained election records from Fulton County, Georgia and Maricopa County, Arizona to probe for alleged voter fraud. It all appears part of President Donald Trump’s relentless efforts to relitigate his past election losses and compromise voter trust in future elections.
In either case, Michigan’s elections and law enforcement chiefs are indulging none of it.
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The 2024 ballots demand is “about a weaponized DOJ trying to please a president who doesn’t want to be held accountable at the ballot box by voters tired of the chaos of his administration,” wrote Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in a Detroit Free Press op-ed. “It’s also about the upcoming elections in November and in 2028, which he is working to discredit by sowing doubt as to the security and fairness of the process.”
DOJ civil rights chief Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter to Wayne County’s chief election official Cathy Garrett on April 14 asking that she send over “all ballots (including absentee and provisional), ballot receipts, and ballot envelopes” from the 2024 election.
Dhillon invoked the Civil Rights Act of 1960 for the demand, stating that it authorized her “to investigate and prosecute individuals who may have registered to vote or voted in violation” of federal laws.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris won Wayne County in 2024 with 68% of the vote to Trump’s 28%, but Trump won the state of Michigan by a slim margin of 49.7% to Harris’s 48.3%
However, Dhillon staked her demands for the 2024 ballots on allegations of voter fraud in the 2020 elections. In her letter to Garrett, Dhillon cited the 2020 Constantino v. Detroit case, in which two voters made several unsubstantiated claims of electoral misconduct against city officials in counting and certifying votes.
A state court rejected the voters’ claims as “not credible” and based on poor understanding of election laws and ballot tabulating processes. The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee also investigated many of the claims made in that case and found no evidence of widespread fraud or wrongdoing.
Michigan Sen. Ed McBroom, the Republican chair of the committee, said at the time, “After innumerable hours over many months, watching, listening, and reading both in-person testimony and various other accounts, I am confident in asserting that the results of the November 2020 General Election in Michigan were accurately represented by the certified and audited results.”
Dhillon did cite three cases of voter fraud from the 2020 elections in her letter. Yet, each of those cases represented instances where fraud had been detected and caught by local and state officials.
Michigan Attorney General Nessel said in 2021 that the criminal charges brought in each case were proof that the state’s “election security checks and balances catch instances of wrongdoing, prompt thorough investigations and result in appropriate action.”
“These cases highlight the scrutiny [that] applications and ballots undergo throughout the election process, as well as the thorough investigative process that ensues when instances of attempted fraud are suspected,” said Nessel in a 2021 press release.
Those three voter fraud convictions, however, came from an election where more than 878,000 people voted in the county.
Nessel and Michigan Secretary of State Benson responded to Dhillon in a letter dated April 17, saying they were “dismayed” that her ballot demands were based on such flimsy evidence.
“Your letter is premised on rejected claims and stale allegations unconnected to Wayne County’s November 2024 election,” they wrote in their response, where they make clear that they would not comply with Dhillon’s demands.
“The courts, our officials, and our legislature have all determined that these theories are baseless, and they certainly provide no support for a demand for 2024 election records. Accordingly, Michigan stands ready to defend against these claims and any attempt to interfere in Michigan’s elections.”
FBI Director Kash Patel said on Fox News that arrests for a “rigged” 2020 election were coming soon – maybe this week.
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