Some of the most prominent Republicans running to become Michigan’s next governor are being booted from the ballot after failing to obtain the state’s required amount of signatures. However, it’s not the lack of the candidates’ popularity amongst voters that contributed to their lack of signatures it was a group of petitioners who intentionally filled paperwork out with fraudulent signatures.
Chief James Craig of the Detroit Police Department and businessman Perry Johnson are now ineligible to pursue the Republican gubernatorial nomination and challenge Democrat Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Fox News reports:
Gubernatorial candidates are required to submit 15,000 valid signatures to appear on the state ballot. According to the bureau, the affected candidates were victimized via a series of petitioners who obtained nothing but invalid or otherwise unusable signatures, putting them well below the mark.
“Michigan’s petition process is fatally flawed because it easily allows criminals to victimize candidates for public office and their thousands of supporters who legitimately sign petitions,” Johnson said of the situation in a campaign statement Monday. “We must bring quality to the petition process by allowing campaigns a mechanism to compare signatures that are gathered by circulators with signatures on the Qualified Voter File to ensure their legitimacy.”
“Criminals can commit fraud for money or by purposely infiltrating a victimized campaign with illegitimate signatures in a Machiavellian attempt by the opposing party to later have them removed from the ballot,” Johnson continued. “Unfortunately, the signatures provided to campaigns cannot currently be checked until after their submission to the Secretary of State. This needs to change, immediately.”
The bureau said it tracked the invalid signatures to approximately 36 petitioners who submitted stacks of petitions with nothing but invalid or otherwise unusable signatures.
In total, five gubernatorial candidates in the state were found to have insufficient valid signatures: Craig, Johnson, Michael Markey, State Police Capt. Michael Brown and businesswoman Donna Brandenburg, according to the bureau.
wpDiscuz
Looks like the Dems have more cheating ways up their sleeves
NOT IF WE TAKE A STRONG STAND AGAINST ANY CHEATING!!
Strong stands sound good,…. they going to allow tar and feathers and running out of town on a rail?,…. pillory and public floggings for election fraud?.
Another instance of fraud in our elections. We are beginning to look like Cuba or Venezuela. And, all thanks to the DumBOcrooks! They KNOW they can’t win unless they cheat and they have no morals or scrupples. They should be prosecuted for fraud.
Just more cheating. May the Demonrats rot in hell.
so the Democrats thought up a new way to cheat….AGAIN
Prog-Democrat dirty tricks now even BEFORE the Primary elections. Gettin bad out there folks!
Witch whitmer must b removed shes patheticly dishonest
The Dems will pull every dirty trick in the book to win. They can’t run on their policies or record because they are so unpopular, so they have to cheat. The Republicans have to wake up to their tactics and fight back.
Kind of curious that the top 5 polling candidates all got taken out.
I was still deciding between Craig and Johnson.
This is clearly Votger Fraud.
Can they petition to throw our t the fraud signatures and obtain valid ones? More DMC corruption. The DNC is an anti American group of Criminals. They should be removed from all ballots
MICHIGAN law enforcement needd to take control and ARREST the corrupt government officials that are DESTROYING THE STATE AND ALLOWING PEOPLE TO BE KILLED!
If they have 36 examples of this, then why are they not prosecuting them for election fraud?
Democrats believe in election rules and laws, when it works to their advantage.
How about write-in votes. Flood the system that way and beat them at their own game……CHEATING NO MATTER WHO IT HURTS.
It appears Michigan is so ripe with election fraud the whole state should be thrown out of the national elections. What happens in the state elections needs to be taken care of by its own citizens. If they get tired of the fraud maybe they’ll rise up and clean out the cheating politicians starting with the current Governor.
DemonicRATS They have no scruples and are basically dishonest Sad
What is the National GOP doing about this. It is obvious fraud and election tampering by the DNC. Just fill out fake petitions against your opposition, and you don’t even have to run against them. What a bunch of CRAP