Michigan review of non-citizens on voter rolls skipped those without driver's licenses

The Michigan Secretary of State’s review of non-citizens on state voter rolls only included those with driver’s licenses, excluding any who registered to vote without a driver’s license or another form of identification, raising concerns about more non-citizens being on the voter rolls than previously disclosed.

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (D) announced earlier this month that 15 non-citizens had voted in the November election, after her office conducted a review of the state voter rolls. 

However, the review was limited in its scope, after Benson’s team explained to her how long it would take to identify active voters without ID. A Michigan election integrity advocate warned that this shows the state isn’t verifying the citizenship of voters.

In September, Benson told the House Administration Committee during an election integrity hearing that "We’re doing everything we can to ensure that non-citizens are not able to vote and that only U.S. citizens vote in our election, and it’s working."

Denies evidence of improper voting

"There is no evidence that non-citizens are voting. If they were, it would be easy to prove since voter records are public. And despite numerous organizations spending a lot of money to try to convince people that non-citizens are voting, none of these groups have actually been able to provide any evidence of it," she continued.

However, the next month, a Chinese foreign national student at the University of Michigan turned himself in after saying he registered to vote and cast a ballot in the general election during early voting in October. The student has been charged with two felonies: false swearing to register to vote and trying to vote as an unqualified elector.

Following the Chinese student’s vote, Benson reached out to her team to coordinate messaging and find out how many registered voters did or didn’t have identification or a driver’s license.

According to an Oct. 28, 2024, text conversation between Benson, her chief of staff, Tina Anderson, Director of Elections Jonathan Brater, Chief Communication Officer Angela Benander, Chief Legal Director Mike Brady, and Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie, it takes multiple hours or days to search the Qualified Voter File (QVF) for registered voters who are active and don’t have a driver's license or ID affiliated with their record. The texts were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by The Detroit News.

Problems getting an accurate number

“I need to know the number of active registered voters who don’t have a license or ID affiliated with their record,” Benson texted in the group chat. “And if possible we need to know the number in that universe who voted in 2020. Just for raw data right now please.”

Anderson responded to Benson, saying, “We did a look at that a few months ago. It’s a multi-day query because the data set is so large. It takes a large number of hours from critical people to run. Jonathan [Brater] and I have talked about the data a few times and it’s worth talking through before we make the request, because the data is complex and may not be very helpful.

“What do we want to use it for?” Anderson asked. “We might have info that can address the same question that is not that exact request.”

“Need to be able to say the vast majority of voters [register with] an ID or DL and have a number to go with that,” Benson said in a later text.

Brater later replied, “We need to be prepared for a statement without a number. We can’t get an accurate number immediately, it is a very complicated query that takes many hours minimum. I agree with Tina [Anderson] that raw number is not likely to be helpful.”

While Benson’s team said that obtaining the data would take a long time, Tim Mauro-Vetter, co-chair of Michigan Fair Elections Institute's (MFEI) Data Evaluation Election Processes team, told MFEI, “I can give you the number of registered, active voters, but the QVF that is available to the public includes no information about driver’s licenses, citizenship, or photo ID. That data simply is not available...to the public.” QVF is a term used in election analysis that is an acronym for Qualified Voter File.

“If the state had the data and made it public, I could provide the information in under a minute,” he added.

It took only 38 seconds

Mauro-Vetter analyzed publicly available data and said he found the total number of registered voters with an active status in 38 seconds.

Patrice Johnson, chair of Pure Integrity Michigan Elections, told Just the News on Thursday that Benson didn’t ask data analysts for help with finding the registered voters she was looking for, according to the text conversation.

“Jocelyn Benson's text thread was interesting because it involved no data people who could have provided an unfiltered, non-political answer to her questions,” Johnson said. “The truth is that Michigan is not verifying citizenship. Registrants are placed on the rolls, often without their knowledge or approval.

“On June 30, a new Michigan law will go into effect (HB 4983) that will make noncitizens prove they are not citizens in order to be removed from the voter rolls. It’s beyond absurd,” she continued. “Now, thankfully the President’s Executive Order 14248 requires federal databases to be made available to state and clerk election officials. This will eliminate any excuse for noncitizens to be on our voter rolls.”

Two months after Benson’s text conversation, her office began a review of state motor vehicle records and voting records, comparing the two data sets to determine whether any non-citizens had voted in the 2024 general election.

A scalpel, not a sledgehammer

The review, released earlier this month, found that 15 non-citizens had voted and 13 of them were referred to the Michigan attorney general for potential criminal charges. One of the two non-citizens who weren’t referred to the attorney general’s office has died, and the other is being investigated by the Michigan state department’s Office of Investigative Services.

“This is a serious issue, one we must address with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer,” Benson said in a statement earlier this month. “Only U.S. citizens can legally register and vote in our elections. Our careful review confirms what we already knew – that this illegal activity is very rare." The Michigan Department of State highlighted that the 16 non-citizens who voted “represent 0.00028% of the more than 5.7 million votes cast by Michiganders in the presidential election.”

“While we take all violations of election law very seriously, this tiny fraction of potential cases in Michigan and at the national level do not justify recent efforts to pass laws we know would block tens of thousands of Michigan citizens from voting in future elections,” Benson continued. “Instead of those failed policies, we will continue to work with lawmakers on reasonable, data-driven efforts to improve security while ensuring that eligible citizens can always make their voice heard.”

The Detroit News also noted that the state’s review of the voter rolls only focused on those registered with ID.

“The vast majority of Michigan voters register through their driver's license or a state ID, which were the focus of the new review. However, Michigan voters also have the option of showing a driver's license from another state, another government-issued ID, a U.S. passport, a military ID, a tribal ID or a student ID,” The Detroit News reported.

“That's why Gao, the Chinese student who allegedly voted illegally in November's election, and other voters likely weren't part of the new review. He used his University of Michigan student ID and other documentation establishing residency in Ann Arbor before signing a document falsely identifying himself as a U.S. citizen and entering his ballot into a tabulator in the fall, according to state and local election officials,” The Detroit News continued.

Benson’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment.