Michigan state lawmakers asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to send election monitors for the state’s 2026 contests, noting that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is running for governor in an election she is supervising.
The letter from 22 Republican state legislators to Bondi also points out the various election controversies Benson has been involved in, which includes resisting efforts to remove the names of dead people from voter registration lists and declining to cooperate with federal inquiries about voter registration lists.
“Our concerns center on Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who, as the state’s chief election official, will oversee the 2026 elections while simultaneously appearing on the ballot as a candidate for governor,” said the Nov. 13 letter, with signers that included state Senate Republican Leader Aric Nesbitt and state Sen. Ruth Johnson, a former Republican secretary of state.
“This creates an inherent and unavoidable conflict of interest, as Secretary Benson will be administering an election in which she has a direct personal stake in the outcome,” the lawmakers’ letter to Bondi continued. “Such a situation risks compromising the impartiality required for fair election oversight and demands external federal scrutiny to maintain public trust.”
The blue-leaning Michigan has been a hotly contested state in national elections, as President Donald Trump carried the state in 2016 and 2024, but lost it in 2020.
Benson’s office did not respond to inquiries from The Daily Signal for this story. However, she posted on X that it is “reckless” to raise questions about the safety of Michigan elections, though without directly noting the request for election monitors.
“Our elections are some of the safest and most secure in the country because the clerks, poll workers, and volunteers—who represent the entire political spectrum—ensure the voices and the votes of the people are heard and upheld,” Benson said in the post. “Suggesting anything else is a reckless attempt to distract from the real issues facing people of Michigan: making sure they can afford to live and thrive in Michigan.”
A Justice Department spokesperson declined to comment on the request to Bondi for election monitors.
The Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division dispatched election monitors to both California and New Jersey earlier this month for elections.
In September, the Justice Department sued six states—including Michigan—for failure to produce their statewide voter registration lists upon request. States are required to keep updated voter registration lists under both the 1993 National Voter Registration Act and the 2002 Help America Vote Act.
The Michigan legislators’ letter, signed by nine state senators and 13 state representatives, noted the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Michigan.
“Further eroding confidence is Secretary Benson’s persistent failure to maintain accurate voter rolls, including her refusal to remove deceased registrants as required by federal law,” the GOP legislators said in the letter to Bondi. “Audits and investigations have revealed more than 25,000 deceased individuals remaining on Michigan’s voter rolls, prompting ongoing litigation that has escalated to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The Public Interest Legal Foundation, a watchdog group, identified the likely dead individuals still registered to vote in Michigan. The group sued Benson’s office to force an investigation of the voter rolls, citing federal laws.
The legislators also noted that even Benson’s office confirmed that at least 16 noncitizens voted in Michigan in the 2024 election.
“While her office downplayed this as ‘rare,’ it underscores systemic failures in citizenship verification processes during voter registration and ballot issuance, failures that could recur without intervention,” the letter says.
Reprinted with permission from The Daily Signal by Fred Lucas.
The reason Trump lost Michigan in twenty twenty is because of voter fraud.
Who guarding the hen house? Obviously crooked on the surface, but what else aren’t we seeing? Resisting the cleaning up of voter rolls and getting away with it? This blatant arrogance is typical of what’s wrong with this country. Starting with the governor and his AG, permanently remove these politicians and bureaucrats from public office, then throw them in jail for lying on their oath of office
What could possibly go wrong with the fox guarding the hen house? Ask Kari Lake! When she ran for AZ governor, her opponent was the sitting SOS and–lo and behold– voting machines in red precincts somehow couldn’t register the votes correctly. HMM? Just a coincidence?
Despite endless claims to the contrary by the Democrats and their controlled media friends, the Democrats have not had majority popular or voter support since the 1960s. And their support has been gradually going down since then. So, you now ask, how do they win so many elections? Very simple: they cheat. And they have been doing so for a very long time. They have dozens of methods of cheating, and they are constantly devising new ones. In addition, they import millions of illegals, many of whom are registered to vote the moment they are released from ICE custody. There have been countless reports from ICE agents along the southern border who have witnessed Democrat operatives registering illegals to vote. And you don’t think the blue states give driver’s licenses to illegals out of some concern for road safety, do you? No, it is so they can vote, and vote they do – by the millions. Since the day after Mr. Trump won the election 12 months ago, I have been saying the following: If there is one thing – but a single thing – Mr. Trump must accomplish during this term of office, it is to create and implement a foolproof system of ensuring election integrity. If that is not accomplished soon, the Democrats are going to keep stealing elections until they control everything in this country, and then we will cease to exist as a country as we know it – we will become the new Red China.
Stalin said “It matters not who does the voting, it matters who does the counting”.
The exact same thing happened in AZ when Katie Hobbs ran for governor and oversaw the election results instead of recusing herself. She was running against Kari Lake who thousands still believe truly won the election, but AZ is a corrupt state these days (just look at the 2 men elected senator — OMG!) and Hobbs as governor is a failure. I don’t believe she will be elected again in 26. Fingers crossed that we get a capable and honest new governor.
Definitely badly needed in Michigan, imo.
The MEGA CORRUPT DemoRAT’S have: 1. Already printed out tens of thousands of ballots (all checked for DemoRATS
2. Sent hundreds of paid homeless, welfare-ites, and the generationally unemployed to every cemetery in the State to gather tens of thousands of dead people to put on the ballots mentioned above.
3. They have arranged fo and will pay Antifa, BLM, Palestinians, ICE and police protesters to intimidate, threaten, disrupt, and cause chaos against non-DemoRAT voters at polling/voting sites Statewide.
Sounds way too familiar! Our current governor, Katie Hobbs was Secretary of State and also responsible for overseeing elections in AZ. People sought to have her recused from that duty when she announced herself as running for governor. She refused to step back from her duty of being responsible for a clean election. Of course, she won with a lot of controversy. One being that on election day, many of the voting machines in mostly Republican voter’s areas did not work for the first several hours that morning. There were also investigations into ballot fraud. She is now our governor and still trying to foil anything President Trump stands for. Have lived in AZ for nearly 28 years and the last several years this state has not had one election that ran smoothly!! We use to be a Republican stronghold and sadly have gone purple. Guess cheating in elections is paying off for the radical liberals. Makes me sick that Mark Kelly and Pete Gallego are our Democrat senators. Their calling for our military to disobey the Commander-In- Chief’s orders is disgusting and dangerous! I guess the Republicans in Congress are too scared to remove them from any committees and censure them!! Disgusted in Arizona!!!
The same thing is happening in the State of New Mexico. Also the gerrymandering here has been unbelievable. The Dems here in this state have had complete control of the elections for years. During the last Gerrymandering the Republicans filed a lawsuit contesting the realignment but the Democrats were able to control the time of the realignment in such a manner that by the time the lawsuit went through the judge would not rule on it but later said the suit was valid. Welcome you communist way Democrats do business.
Dont want 2020 rerun
I would be willin’ to bet the Dumba$$ocrat$ in Michigan will volunteer to take on this .onerous task, out of the goodness of their hearts. Don’tchew?
I’m glad they’re getting ahead of the problem. didn’t happen here in Arizona when then Secretary of State Katie Hobbs ran an election where she was elected Governor. At the very least, this is a conflict of interest and should not happen. We do have resign to run laws here, but I guess it didn’t apply for some reason.