This article was originally published by Votebeat, a nonprofit news organization covering local election administration and voting access. Sign up for Votebeat Michigan’s free newsletter here.
The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding that Wayne County — Michigan’s most populous county and the home of Detroit — turn over all ballots, receipts, and envelopes from the 2024 election.
It’s the latest push by the Trump administration to assert federal oversight over how elections are administered in a critical swing state. It’s also the first known instance of the Justice Department demanding ballots and other materials from the 2024 election, which President Donald Trump won. It highlights the continued interest in Detroit, a city Trump has repeatedly said saw massive fraud during the 2020, though such claims have been repeatedly debunked.
But there are some key questions that remain to be answered. For one, the Justice Department is demanding the ballots from the county, which doesn’t have them. In Michigan, it is local officials — not the county — who administer elections and maintain custody of the ballots afterward.
Related:
- Michigan: Elections clerk allegedly canceled, changed voter registrations
- Michigan: Clerk can run elections again after ‘false electors’ dismissal
- Michigan voter roll fight may be first to land at Supreme Court
To support the request, the Justice Department’s letter cites three cases, all from after the 2020 election, in which Wayne County voters were accused of fraud. It also cites a lawsuit from 2020 that accused Wayne County and Detroit of allowing election workers to commit fraud by counting ballots from voters who weren’t on the rolls, instructing poll workers to backdate absentee ballots, and to process ballots that came in late. However, that suit was dismissed quickly, with a judge writing that the “plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.”
The Justice Department’s letter, dated April 14 and signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, asks the records be produced “based on this history of fraud convictions and other allegations concerning the election procedures in Wayne County.” None of the examples given were from 2024, the election being probed.
The letter instructed the county to produce the records within 14 days, and said if it does not, the administration could seek a court order for them.
The Justice Department did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesperson for Wayne County declined to comment Monday morning. But Michigan officials — including the governor, attorney general, and secretary of state, all Democrats — released both the letter from the DOJ and statements of their own.
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer called the Justice Department demand a “poorly disguised attempt to justify more doubt and misinformation about our elections.” Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who ran both the 2020 and 2024 elections as the state’s top election official, called it “the Trump administration’s latest attempt to interfere in our elections.”
Attorney General Dana Nessel sent her own letter back to Dhillon, saying that “Michigan stands ready to defend against these claims and any attempt to interfere in Michigan’s elections.” People have analyzed Michigan’s elections relentlessly, she said, including ongoing efforts from a number of conservative-leaning organizations — and “it is more than likely that any alleged errors will be based on previously debunked theories and provide no credible grounds for further questioning of Detroit’s election.”
“Even if your letter sufficiently states a demand, which it does not, the records are in possession of the 43 local clerks in Wayne County,” she wrote. “The scant and localized facts you cite do not merit a demand to all 43 jurisdictions.”
She goes on to say that clerks are preparing for future elections and don’t have the time to produce the records.
“These records could have been requested at almost any time in 2025,” she writes. “There is no reasonable explanation for your delay given the demand is not based on recent events but rather those occurring in 2020 or shortly thereafter.”
This is not the federal government’s first attempt to involve itself in Michigan’s elections. The DOJ last year asked the state for its voter roll, and when the state shared only the redacted, publicly available version, the federal government sued the state. That case is working its way through an appeal, with arguments scheduled for May. The Justice Department has so far filed similar lawsuits against 30 states and the District of Columbia, So far, federal courts have ruled against them in five of the lawsuits, with decisions pending in the others.
Republicans in the state Legislature have signed on to a resolution asking for Michigan’s rolls to be released in full. Some Republicans also asked the Justice Department last year to provide “comprehensive oversight” of the state’s 2026 elections, although it remains unclear what such oversight might look like.
Trump, for his part, has suggested that the federal government should “nationalize” voting, naming Detroit as one of the places he would like to “take over.”
Michigan is the third state in which the DOJ has attempted to obtain records from past elections. The FBI seized hundreds of boxes of ballots from the 2020 election in Fulton County, Georgia — home of Atlanta — in a raid in January, and in March the FBI subpoenaed records from a partisan review of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona — a major swing county that is home to Phoenix. FBI Director Kash Patel said Sunday that the DOJ was continuing to probe past elections and could soon make arrests.
Hayley Harding is a reporter for Votebeat based in Michigan. Contact Hayley at hharding@votebeat.org. Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under our Republication Guidelines. Questions? Email republishing@bridgemi.com
