Democrats contend Republicans are using Michigan lawsuits to sow election doubts

Lansing — The Democratic National Committee submitted briefs Monday against two election lawsuits brought by Republicans in Michigan courts, arguing the GOP was attempting to "undermine faith in our electoral system."

The filings spotlighted Michigan as a crucial battleground state, six months before the November election, and also highlighted the significant role judges will likely play this year, amid a heightened focus on the policies and personnel guiding voting across the nation.

After the last presidential election, Republican Donald Trump's supporters unleashed a stream of suits — most of them quickly rejected in Michigan — advancing false claims that victory had been stolen from him by widespread fraud.

On Monday, lawyers for the Democratic National Committee, which is working to reelect President Joe Biden, said two suits filed by the Republican National Committee in Michigan in March were part of "extensive" and "wide-ranging" efforts to make people believe the upcoming election will be unfair.

"The only practical effect of this litigation is to sow doubt about the integrity of Michigan’s elections and generate talking points for future claims of voter fraud," the Democratic attorneys wrote in one of their briefs.

The Republican National Committee filed a lawsuit on March 13 in Michigan's Western District federal court, saying Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson had failed to maintain "clean and accurate" voter registration records and allowed dozens of counties to have more active registered voters than adult residents.

Then, on March 28, the Republican committee submitted a separate suit in the Michigan Court of Claims, asserting Benson, who is a Democrat, had improperly issued guidance telling clerks to presume signatures submitted for absentee voting were valid.

“Michigan’s state Constitution is very clear: Election officials have to verify the identity of voters casting absentee ballots," said Michael Whatley, chairman of the Republican National Committee, in a statement in March. "Jocelyn Benson is yet again working to undermine election integrity by secretly instructing officials to disregard and circumvent these clear requirements.

"The RNC is suing Benson because Michiganders deserve election integrity, not underhanded Democrat schemes."

However, Benson's guidance said an initial presumption of validity didn't mean all signatures were presumed to be valid without further review, as Democratic lawyers noted in briefs they submitted to the courts Monday morning.

Clerks "must review all signatures and should determine that a signature does not agree sufficiently on file only after completing review of the signature as described in these instructions and in Michigan election law," the guidance said.

"Clerks should consider a voter’s signature questionable only if it differs in significant and obvious respects from the signature on file," the guidance added. "Slight dissimilarities should be resolved in favor of the voter."

As for the voting registration records suit, Democrats said in their brief, the court had "recently disposed of a similar case involving the same basic allegations" and there "is nothing unlawful about Michigan’s voter-roll maintenance program."

"Contrary to the RNC’s rhetoric, the true threat to our electoral system comes not from voter-roll maintenance like Michigan’s, but from baseless lawsuits like this one," the Democratic lawyers wrote in their Monday brief.

Republicans were demanding people be removed from eligible voter lists faster than permitted by federal law, threatening to "unlawfully disenfranchise Michigan voters," the Democratic lawyers wrote.

The Democratic legal responses came 183 days before the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Trump visited on Wednesday Saginaw County, where he told a crowd of thousands of people that Democrats "rigged" the 2020 presidential election but "we're not going to allow them to rig" the election in 2024.

"We want a landslide that's too big to rig," Trump told his supporters in Michigan.

In 2020, Biden won Michigan by more than 154,000 votes, 51%-48%. Bipartisan boards of canvassers certified the numbers. In places results were reviewed, they were upheld. And an investigation by a Republican-led state Senate committee found "no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud."

In a statement on Monday, Charles Lutvak, spokesman for the Biden campaign, said Trump's team was "doubling down on their losing 2020 playbook and taking aim at our voting rights and democracy."

"They will fail again," Lutvak said. "Our team is prepared and continuing the fight for democracy, we are defending the right to free and fair elections against Republicans’ junk lawsuits, and we will defeat Donald Trump once and for all in November.”

In a statement, the Republican National Committee said Michigan's voter rolls are inaccurate.

"It speaks volumes that Democrats are laser-focused on stopping voter roll cleanup instead of solving any of the crises that have erupted on their watch," the Republican National Committee said.

cmauger@detroitnews.com