The Republican National Committee (RNC) filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, seeking an overhaul of Michigan’s voter registration rolls.
The commission claims the state has “failed” to comply with the National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA) requirement that voter registration rolls be clean.
The lawsuit is filed in federal court; At least 53 of Michigan’s 83 counties claim to have more registered voters than adults of legal voting age. In addition, 23 counties have active voter registration rates “in excess of 90 percent of the adult population 18 years of age and older,” the complaint states.
“This is not the first time Michigan has failed to comply with the requirements of the NVRA,” the complaint said, citing as an example a 2020 lawsuit against Michigan election officials who violated the law’s requirements. I was then fired.
The RNC’s lawsuit comes just days after allies of former President Trump assumed leadership positions and hours after the party confirmed Trump as the Republican nominee for the 2024 election.
Michigan, a key battleground state, voted for President Biden in the 2020 election. Biden won by a margin of 154,000 votes, despite President Trump urging officials not to certify the results.
Under the NVRA, each state would implement a “General Voter Registration List Maintenance Program” that would make “reasonable efforts” to remove people from voter rolls who become ineligible due to death or relocation outside the state or jurisdiction. It is mandatory. It also prevents eliminating voters who may not have voted in years.
Maintenance programs must be “uniform, nondiscriminatory, and compliant with the Voting Rights Act.” said the Department of Justice.
The Hill asked Benson for comment, but the Secretary of State said: Statement to NBC News Michigan says it has done more in the past five years to accurately remove people from the list than it has in the past 20 years.
The paper said more than 700,000 people have been removed since she took office, and many more will be removed if they don’t vote in this fall’s general election.
“What do you want to call it? It’s a PR campaign disguised as a baseless lawsuit full of baseless accusations designed to erode people’s confidence in the security of our elections,” Benson told NBC News. . “Those who abuse the legal process to sow doubts about our democracy should be ashamed.”
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