A number of Michigan Republicans — both those seeking the party’s gubernatorial bid and those currently in office — are casting doubt on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s ability to serve as the state’s chief elections officer in 2026 as she seeks the governor’s office as a Democrat. But former election officials and voting advocates alike are calling that narrative misleading about the way the state’s election law works and Benson’s role — or lack thereof — in the actual administration of the election.
Michigan’s longtime director of elections, Chris Thomas, who served in the role from 1981 to 2017, called the insinuations by GOP candidates “gratuitous political shopping for a headline” and deceptive to voters who might not understand the complexities of election administration in Michigan.
“If you really understand the way elections work in Michigan, you wouldn’t say that Jocelyn Benson or any secretary of state actually administers our elections,” Erica Peresman, a senior advisor for Promote The Vote Michigan, said noting that Michigan has one of the most decentralized election systems in the country, where municipal clerks do the brunt of actual election administration.
“The only ballot that Jocelyn Benson would actually touch during this election or any other election is her own ballot,” she said.
Thomas similarly noted that the Michigan Bureau of Elections, which is the administrative arm of the Department of State, is run by the Director of Elections, a civil service employee as opposed to a political appointee or at-will employee of the secretary of state.
“Either these candidates for governor haven’t bothered to take a few minutes to read and understand Michigan Election Law or they know they’re spreading lies about the process,” Angela Benander, spokesperson for the Department of State, wrote to the Michigan Advance.
The Department of State is also preparing to release conflict-of-interest avoidance guidelines explaining to the public exactly what firewalls are in place to prevent the kinds of interference that some GOP candidates are alleging.
Meanwhile, Richard Houskamp, the Republican chairman of the Board of State Canvassers, has repeatedly said that the public should trust the board’s ability to fairly verify signatures.
Both Peresman and Thomas were both quick to note that a secretary of state serving in that role while running in an election is not only not unprecedented in the way that Republicans have made it out to be, but common.
“Before Jocelyn Benson, if you go back to 1955, there have been five secretaries of state. And each of them ran for re-election at least once while they were secretary of state. So that means that they were on the ballot in an election while they were ‘administering elections’ as the supervisory officer administering the election as Secretary of State,” Peresman said.
And across partisan lines, secretaries of state have also sought other offices — during their respective terms, Ruth Johnson ran for the state Senate, a position which she currently holds, Candace Miller ran for U.S. Congress, and Richard Austin ran for U.S. Senate, Thomas explained.
Thomas added that no election administrator in Michigan, down to municipal clerks, is free from bias — most of those officials are also members of one party or another, but are trusted to fairly run their elections.
Either these candidates for governor haven’t bothered to take a few minutes to read and understand Michigan Election Law or they know they’re spreading lies about the process.
“It’s just a partisan system here,” he said. “Our elections are well run, but those that make those allegations need to understand if they’ve got any sense of how government works in Michigan, that this thing’s partisan from top to bottom.”
Two of the Republicans leading in the polls to potentially take on Benson in the general election, U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby Township) and businessman Perry Johnson, have repeatedly stated their distrust in Benson’s ability to run the November election, as well as to verify petition signatures for candidates to make the August primary ballot. A third candidate, Senate Majority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Porter Township), has also called for federal involvement in elections in Michigan due to Benson’s candidacy for governor.
“Let’s face it, we have a very unusual situation right now, because we have the Secretary of State who will be my opponent, and she is going to be the one going over all of these, making a decision on who should be on the ballot,” Johnson said while filing his signatures. “In my opinion, she should recuse herself, just like a judge would, but that’s obviously her decision.”
James similarly told reporters that he had submitted significantly more than the required number of signatures, “because you never can be too careful.”
But Benson is not responsible for verifying signatures on ballot petitions — a process that led to Johnson being kicked off the gubernatorial ballot in 2022 over signature fraud. That responsibility falls to the Board of State Canvassers, which is made up of two Democrats and two Republicans.
“Under Michigan law, the bipartisan, independent Board of State Canvassers is responsible for determining whether the signatures candidates submit are sufficient for them to appear on the ballot,” Benander wrote. “The Secretary herself has no direct role in reviewing petitions or making recommendations to the Board of State Canvassers.”
It is not just gubernatorial candidates within the Republican Party making these types of claims against Benson.
Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Martin), who chairs the House Election Integrity Committee, published an op-ed in the Detroit News on Wednesday accusing Benson of manipulating election rules to give herself and her department more power, which she called “a constitutional crisis in slow motion.”
Smit’s accusations revolve around a proposed rule change, which will be the subject of a public hearing on May 22.
The draft rule would define the roles of a number of positions, including the secretary of state, director of elections and deputy director of elections, as well as how the duties of those positions can be delegated to other staff within the department.
Smit specifically critiqued proposed rules that state, respectively, that county clerks and the cities or townships are “responsible for administering elections in that county as prescribed by the act” and that their duties and responsibilities “may be delegated to the county clerk’s staff or assistants as prescribed” by the clerk.
She argues that these rules “shift power away from independent election officials and toward a secretary of state with a clear conflict of interest.”
The department’s regulatory impact statement, however, refutes that characterization — the statement reads, “The proposed rules are not designed to alter any behavior or the frequency of any behavior. The rules are intended to clarify who may perform certain duties and responsibilities, but should not change any behaviors associated with performance of duty or responsibility.”
As for the longer-term impacts of these types of concerns being levied against the secretary of state, Thomas noted that “it doesn’t help anything” in terms of voter confidence in the fairness of elections.
When asked if these concerns being raised early might be laying the foundation for the denial of the final outcome in November, he said the question will be, “if these types of claims come up, what are the facts that are the basis for the claims? The fact that she’s an unrecused Secretary of State is not a fact that supports election fraud.”
