Image of Michigan voter rolls shows formatting error, not fraud

"After reviewing the Qualified Voter File (QVF) of votes actually cast as of yesterday, October 29, 2024, the database identifies 114,545 Michigan voters who have cast 279,113 ballots from multiple addresses across the state," says an October 30, 2024 X post from Matthew DePerno, an attorney facing four felony charges in connection to a plot to tamper with voting machines in the 2020 election.

"This results in 164,568 excess ballots as of 10/29/2024. Below is one Voter ID."

The post, which received tens of thousands of interactions, includes a screenshot of Michigan voter data showing 29 entries using the same voter ID numbers in Michigan's Wayne County, home of Detroit. All of the entries have a vote recorded October 25.

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Screenshot from X taken November 1, 2024, with elements blurred by AFP

The same image and claim have spread elsewhere on X, Facebook, Instagram, Threads, TikTok, YouTube and Gettr. Conservative polling firm Rasmussen Reports and Trump campaign political director James Blair amplified it.

Michigan's voter registration database has previously been the target of misinformation about the 2024 election between former president Trump and Vice President Harris. In late October, a federal judge rejected a lawsuit brought by the Republican National Committee alleging the secretary of state was improperly managing voter rolls (archived here).

A spokesperson for the Michigan secretary of state told AFP that the latest posts do not show one person casting multiple votes. Instead, they depict a "formatting error" in a spreadsheet that shows several former addresses for a voter. 

"Each of these voters only had one vote recorded for this election. This error in the data export process has been corrected, and these erroneous extra lines no longer appear on the report," senior press secretary Cheri Hardmon said in an October 30 email.

Hours after Blair's re-post, Republican National Committee Co-Chair Lara Trump said on X that the party had "investigated" the complaints and confirmed it was a glitch and that no duplicate votes had been counted (archived here).

'Baseless conspiracy theories'

The posts show a section of Michigan's Qualified Voter File (QVF), which contains information about registered voters in the state -- including personal information, last known address and recent voting history (archived here).

In-person early voting in Michigan opened October 26, meaning the vote shown in the posts was likely a mail-in or absentee ballot.

DePerno, who ran unsuccessfully for Michigan attorney general in 2022 and withdrew from the state Supreme Court race in August 2024, later responded to his post saying he obtained a copy of the QVF through a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Copies of the QVF are available through FOIA, but officials redact personal data like contact information, driver's license numbers and voter signatures (archived here).

AFP submitted a FOIA request and received a copy of vote tallies from the Michigan secretary of state November 1. The document shows no duplicate votes.

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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)

A longer statement on the Michigan Department of State's website says that when a registered voter moves within the state, officials keep track of address changes on the QVF. However, authorities only associate the voter's latest address with their active registration (archived here).

Address changes do not result in the department issuing multiple ballots to a single voter.

"Voters can only vote once in every election. A recent social media post has taken a data report that included formatting errors to incorrectly claim that individual voters were casting multiple ballots in this election," the website says.

In a post on X the day after DePerno's, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson warned voters about "bad actors" spreading "baseless conspiracy theories" about election fraud online (archived here).

AFP contacted DePerno for comment, but no response was forthcoming.

AFP has debunked other claims about the 2024 election here.