Fact check: No evidence Jocleyn Benson targeted conservative petitions

Michigan allows citizens to petition new laws, but conservatives say Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson puts her thumb on the scales
A review of petitions seeking ballot access found longer reviews for conservative proposals, higher signature validity rates
The signature review process is largely overseen by the Michigan Bureau of Elections, not Benson herself

LANSING — Michigan Republicans allege that Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office is giving unfair treatment to conservative petition drives after a citizenship voting proposal failed to make the ballot.

“Whenever a Republican-affiliated group submits something on the ballot, it takes months and months and months to review it, and then they always figure out a way to disqualify it,” said House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, who has formed a special committee to investigate the process.

“If it’s a Democrat group, they review it much quicker, and they always find a way to approve it, even if it’s suspect.”

The allegations are emerging after the Board of State Canvassers last month rejected a Nov. 3 ballot measure from Americans for Citizens Voting to require proof of ID to vote.

The group submitted 709,000 signatures, far more than the 446,198 required. But state officials concluded that nearly 40% were faulty.

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Benson is running for governor as a Democrat, prompting accusations from her Republican opponent, John James, that she is responsible for torpedoing conservative proposals.

Benson’s office said there’s “no evidence” of partisan treatment — and Bridge Michigan review of data during her term supports that conclusion.

Since Benson took office in 2019, six petitions that went before the state Board of Canvassers were disqualified due to signature issues. Four were backed by more liberal groups. Two were from conservative ones.

And while signatures from conservative groups took longer than average to process, the two longest review processes were of ballot measures proposed by liberal groups.

Here are the facts.

Failed petition drives

Republicans’ arguments boil down to two claims — that the Bureau of Elections overseen by Benson rejects too many signatures from conservative groups and takes too long to review them.

During Benson’s tenure, 10 petitions have gone to the Board of State Canvassers, the bipartisan panel that votes on whether to put proposals on general election ballots and acts on recommendations from Benson’s staff.

One — a petition to ban fracking — was rejected because organizers collected signatures outside of a required 180-day window. For the others:

The Bureau of Elections determined an average of 74% of signatures on all the petitions were valid. The rate was 78% on conservative-backed petitions and 73% on liberal ones.
Elections officials needed an average of 161 days to review signatures for petitions. The rate was 180 days for conservative petitions and 151 for liberal ones.
Two liberal-leaning initiatives took far longer — 444 days for a 2023 Raise the Wage petition kept off the ballot due to faulty signatures, and 268 days on a failed 2021 petition to expand Michigan’s civil rights law to include protections for gender identity and sexual orientation.

Other conservative-backed petition drives didn’t make the ballot for a variety of reasons despite high signature validity rates:

In 2020, the Michigan Values Life petition sought to ban a common abortion procedure. Benson’s staff concluded 86% of signatures were valid but organizers didn’t collect enough signatures to compensate for the rejected ones.
One year later, officials determined 86% of signatures were valid from the Unlock Michigan group, which sought to repeal emergency powers Gov. Gretchen Whitmer used early in the COVID-19 pandemic. The only reason the measure didn’t make it to the ballot was because the Legislature approved it before the petition could be considered by voters.

In contrast, the Bureau of Elections determined that only 61% of signatures gathered by Americans for Citizen Voting–Michigan were valid.

That was the lowest rate in eight years.

Problems included duplicate signatures and petition signers not being registered to vote in the city or township they indicated on the sheet. Attorney Bob LaBrant, who had challenged the group’s signatures for Promote the Vote Action, called it “a very, very sloppy petition drive for a group that had all sorts of financial resources.”

Michigan’s process

Michigan is one of 24 states that empowers voters to initiate legislation and has three types of citizen-petitions that can make the ballot: Constitution amendments, initiatives or referendums on existing laws.

The signature reviews are conducted by the Bureau of Elections under Director Jonathan Brater, who Benson appointed. Workers do not count every signature — instead scrutinizing 1,000 random ones.

Benson is not directly involved in the process. As part of her run for governor, she released a firewall policy to recuse herself from decisions including petition reviews to mitigate “the suggestion of a potential conflict of interest or undue influence.”

Even before the election, most secretaries of state do not typically get involved directly in the process.

Benson’s predecessor, Ruth Johnson, a Groveland Township Republican who now serves in the state Senate, told Bridge she occasionally reviewed petition “issues brought to my attention by staff to make a final determination.”

Johnson said she was also “personally involved in setting the timeline for review and authorizing additional temporary staff” tasked with reviewing petition signatures.

As for the timing, constitutional amendments and referendums are placed on the ballot immediately if the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers determines they have enough valid signatures.

But under the state constitution, initiatives must first go before the Legislature for 40 days. This year, that meant the bureau was “required” to review signatures for a separate Michiganders for Money out of Politics initiative before the citizenship proposal, the state said in a recent US Supreme Court filing.

Board of State Canvassers meeting. — Members of the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers last month deadlocked on a conservative-backed petition requiring proof of citizenship to vote, prompting outcry over whether the petition review process is biased in favor of liberal-leaning groups. (Jordyn Hermani/Bridge Michigan)

The citizenship voting group submitted its signatures to the state in early March but the bureau was not able to review them immediately because it first had to process nominating and qualifying petitions for candidates that were due in April, attorneys told the nation’s highest court.

If lawmakers want to speed up petition reviews, they’ll need to provide additional funding to the bureau for more staff, said former Elections Director Chris Thomas, who served under both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, including Johnson.

The bottom line

Conservative and liberal groups have both had successes and failures getting advancing ballot measures under Benson.

There’s scant evidence that either were targeted or rewarded during her tenure.

While staff reviews of conservative petitions took longer on average to scrutinize, the sample size is small, and reviews took significantly longer for two liberal petitions.