Nik Pott

Michigan Sec. of State Is Asked If Illegal Aliens Are on Its Voter Rolls, Her Response Is Damning Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson went on Face the Nation and got a simple question: how are you verifying there are no non-citizens on the voter rolls? She did not answer it. She said Michigan has done “more than any other state.” She said non-citizen voting is “so rare.” She bragged about 5.5 million ballots in 2024. She said a handful of ineligible people were identified and held accountable, so “the system is working.” That is the dodge. The question was not whether she can give a speech. The question was whether illegal aliens and other non-citizens are on Michigan’s rolls right now. Watch the pattern. For years the line was “no evidence.” Then the evidence showed up and the line became “rare, and that proves the system works.” A Chinese national’s illegal 2024 ballot was counted. Officials said it could not be pulled back. Her own office later said about 15 other non-citizens appeared to have voted in that same election. That is a tiny share of 5.7 million ballots. It is also not zero. Rare still means illegal votes were cast. Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini compared jury lists to the Qualified Voter File. People who claimed they were not citizens to get out of jury duty were still showing up as registered voters. Benson’s office disputed parts of his work and warned clerks not to use that method. She did not make the underlying question go away. The Trump DOJ sent her a letter warning that an election official who knowingly leaves non-citizens on the state voter list, or helps them get and cast ballots, can face criminal liability. Benson has fought federal demands for fuller voter-file access. She calls it protecting voters. Critics call it refusing an audit. This month the state auditor general said the rolls are mostly in good shape heading into the midterms and still flagged possible non-citizens, dead voters, and bad birthdates. Hundreds of registrations were canceled or rejected over citizenship issues in the review window. Benson’s office said that shows clerks are being proactive. Then say how many non-citizens are still listed, how they got there, and how fast they come off. Michigan law is not complicated. Only U.S. citizens may register and vote. Self-attestation plus a computer block at the counter is not the same as a citizenship check against federal records. Driver’s-license data does not catch everyone. Jury-duty claims keep exposing mismatches. Naturalized citizens can be mis-flagged. Non-citizens can sit on the file until someone looks. Benson is not a bystander. She is the state’s chief election officer and the Democratic nominee for governor. She is asking Michigan to trust her with both jobs while she treats a yes-or-no question like a trap. Voters are allowed to ask it anyway. Are non-citizens on the list or not? How many? What proof? If the answer is a press release about “rarity” and “access,” that is not transparency. That is the dodge.

We have a DSA Governor in Michigan. Michigan you got it so wrong. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is overseeing the state’s elections while running for governor in 2026, the same structural conflict we saw with Katie Hobbs in Arizona in 2022. Benson is Michigan’s chief elections officer. In May 2026 she announced “firewalls” and said she would recuse herself from certain gubernatorial-race decisions (candidate affidavits, petition reviews, recounts, audits, campaign-finance complaints), delegating those to the Director of Elections. She remains the chief elections officer with final policy authority. Critics, including Republican candidates, called for fuller recusal, arguing a sitting SOS cannot impartially oversee an election in which she is a candidate. Defenders note Michigan’s decentralized system (local clerks run most administration) and that past secretaries of state of both parties have run while in office. The Arizona parallel is direct. In 2022, Katie Hobbs was Secretary of State and ran for governor. She certified the results of her own narrow win over Kari Lake. Lake and supporters called it a clear conflict; Hobbs and others said secretaries of state routinely certify elections in which they appear on the ballot, but the appearance of self-oversight fueled distrust. When the official charged with running the election is also a candidate, and access to the voter file is repeatedly contested or limited, public confidence suffers. Arizona showed the pattern; Michigan is living it again. Clean, verifiable rolls and clear separation between the candidate and the administrator are basic requirements for trust.