"I voted" stickers for people who cast their ballot at the McDonald Elementary School in Dearborn, Michigan during the presidential primary election on February 27, 2024 ( AFP / JEFF KOWALSKY)

Michigan voter rolls are not evidence of potential fraud

A judge has ruled Michigan is correctly managing its voter rolls, contrary to claims from conservative influencers that data showing more registered voters than eligible residents highlights a potential for fraud in the 2024 presidential contest. Officials say they are adhering to laws that require a waiting period of two election cycles to remove inactive voters from the rolls, including people who have left the US state.

"Michigan's Voter Rolls List 8.4M Voters. There Are Fewer Than 8M Voting-Age Residents In the State," says an October 18, 2024 Instagram post with thousands of interactions.

Conservative commentator Rogan O'Handley made a similar claim October 20 on X, alluding to debunked claims of irregularities from the 2020 election and adding: "We MUST stop the Michigan steal."

After President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory, supporters of former president Donald Trump promoted debunked claims of widespread fraud and rallied around the slogan "stop the steal," which featured prominently in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

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Screenshot from X taken October 24, 2024
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Screenshot from Instagram taken October 24, 2024

Elon Musk, the owner of X and a campaigner for Trump's 2024 reelection bid, amplified the more recent claim in a testy exchange on the platform with Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson (archived here).

Benson replied that Musk was spreading "dangerous disinformation."

"There are 7.2 million active registered voters and 7.9 citizens of voting age in our state," she said October 19 (archived here). "Musk is pushing a misleading number that includes 1.2 million inactive records slated for removal in accordance with the law."

She linked to the state's Election Fact Center, which says registrations are canceled if a voter dies, moves away from their jurisdiction, requests a cancellation or if the registration is identified as a duplicate (archived here).

"State and federal law require voters who are inactive because they may have moved to stay on the rolls until the 2-federal cycle waiting period has passed -- a period of time that could be up to four years," the website says.

A separate webpage from the Michigan Department of State shows some 8.4 million registrations as of October 24, with 338,719 set to be removed in 2025 and 256,710 in 2027.

About 800,000 names have been purged from voter rolls since 2019 (archived here).

Lawsuit rejected

In a lawsuit filed by the Republican National Committee, a federal judge on October 23, 2024 rejected claims that Michigan violated federal law and should be required to make further efforts to remove unqualified voters from the rolls (archived here).

The plaintiffs "have not alleged any specific breakdown in Michigan's removal program, nor have Plaintiffs requested any specific relief," Judge Jane Beckering wrote in a 30-page opinion.

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Graphic on the US election battleground state of Michigan with previous presidential election results and percentage of population by ethnic group (AFP / Jonathan WALTER, Olivia BUGAULT, Sabrina BLANCHARD)

The judge said simply comparing census data to voter registration numbers "does not plausibly indicate" Michigan is violating the National Voter Registration Act, noting that the law "prohibits states from removing voters suspected of moving until at least two federal general elections have passed."

She added that "the quality of the pleading does not permit the Court to infer more than a mere possibility of misconduct."

AFP contacted the secretary of state's office for additional comment, but no response was forthcoming.

More of AFP's reporting on misinformation about the 2024 US election is available here.

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