By Ben Solis
Gongwer News Service
The Republican National Committee's claims that Michigan voting records are a mess, and that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson should clean them up were thrown out of federal court on Tuesday.
In an opinion issued by U.S. District Judge Jane Beckering of the Western District of Michigan, the court granted Benson and Election Director Jonathan Brater's motions to dismiss RNC v. Benson (USWDM Docket No. 24-00262).
The lawsuit argued that Benson and Brater have failed to maintain clean and accurate voter registration records in violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The Republican National Committee also claimed that at least 53 Michigan counties have more active registered voters than they have adult citizens who are over the age of 18 years old.
Michigan had been sued previously over the issue in Daunt v. Benson, a 2020 case that argued Michigan had one county with registration rates in excess of 100 percent of the voting-age population, and 15 counties with rates above 90 percent. The state moved to dismiss the case, but a Western district judge denied the request. Soon afterward, Benson announced the cancellation of 177,000 registrations from former voters who either surrendered a Michigan driver's license to another state or had election mail returned undeliverable to an election official before the 2018 election.
The bureau also declared that it would provide local clerks with absentee ballot applications returned as undeliverable for 2020 election, as well as other measures.
That led the plaintiffs in Daunt to dismiss the case. The RNC argued that Michigan's voter rolls "have gotten exponentially worse," leading to the lawsuit that was ultimately dismissed on Tuesday.
Beckering wrote that, as Benson and Brater emphasized in their motions to dismiss, the plaintiffs had not alleged any specific breakdown in Michigan's removal program, nor had the plaintiffs requested any specific relief.
"The plaintiffs' claim is merely that the defendants' list maintenance program is 'not reasonable,'" Beckering wrote. "And for 'relief,' the plaintiffs request that this court order the defendants to 'develop and implement reasonable and effective registration list-maintenance programs.' … Conclusory assertions that merely parrot the language of a statute do not state a plausible claim. The plaintiffs would need to allege some factual context to 'nudge' their statutory violation claim 'across the line from conceivable to plausible.' The plaintiffs' census data alone, even assuming its reliability, does not plausibly indicate that Michigan is violating the National Voter Registration Act."
Beckering, nominated to the bench by President Joe Biden, added that Section 8 of the NVRA prohibits states from removing registered voters from official voter lists unless such removal is done so at the request of the registrant.
"As described, the NVRA purposes to both protect electoral integrity and protect against unlawful voter disenfranchisement. Absent the plaintiffs' legal conclusions and unwarranted factual inferences, which this court is not required to accept as true, there is no content in the plaintiffs' complaint that states a plausible claim under the NVRA," Beckering wrote.
"Therefore, even assuming arguendo that one of the plaintiffs at bar has standing to bring this claim, the quality of the pleading does not permit the court to infer more than a mere possibility of misconduct."
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson praised the ruling in a statement and defended the state's elections as secure.
"False and meritless claims - whether they are posted on social media or in legal filings - won't stand up in court. That's where evidence, the law, and facts rule the day," she said. "I'm grateful the federal court today again affirmed our vigorous work to maintain the accuracy of Michigan's voter rolls in accordance with state and federal law. In doing so, they dismissed a lawsuit designed to plant false seeds of doubt about the integrity of my work and our elections."
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