(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) Five Michigan residents have sued to prevent Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Elections Director Jonathan Brater for publishing last-minute rules that would prevent poll watchers from safeguarding the state’s elections, the Gateway Pundit reported.
In the updated guidance, Benson—a radical leftist funded by George Soros—states that poll challengers must fill out an additional credential form, must sign up prior to Election Day, must not speak with election officials, and must not carry electronic devices.
Election law in Michigan does not contain these provisions. Benson invented them.
Plaintiffs in the case argued that Benson violated Michigan’s Administrative Procedures Act of 1969, a law that requires the state’s departments and agencies to follow a transparent and often lengthy process to formalize new rules. Benson unilaterally issued the guidance.
The Republican National Committee filed a similar lawsuit to prevent Benson’s rules from taking effect, arguing that she issued them “without any formal rulemaking or process,” The Federalist reported.
Last March, State Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray overturned guidance in which Benson told election clerks to assume the legitimacy of absentee ballot signatures, ruling that she overstepped her authority.
The Michigan plaintiffs also alleged that Benson’s rules substantively violated MCL §168.733, a law that empowers election watchers to oversee and challenge officials, to examine ballots, to keep records, and to do all these things without facing threats or intimidation.
Benson has threatened poll watchers, the lawsuit alleges, by “depicting them as violent extremists,” the lawsuit claims.
Michigan state house candidate Penny Crider and her husband, Kenneth Crider, a candidate for Michigan state senate, both joined the lawsuit.
They stated that their campaign gives them a “substantial interest in the manner from the citizenry at large in ensuring an open, transparent, and lawful election process, which poll challengers in part ensure.”
