Michigan’s top officials denounced a Justice Department demand for Detroit-area 2024 election ballots as a “troubling pattern” of federal search warrants. It is the department’s third demand sent to investigate voter fraud claims linked to the 2024 election.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon requested all ballot-related information from the Wayne County clerk as part of an investigation into voter fraud, according to a copy Michigan’s Attorney General’s office shared. The county, which includes Detroit and Dearborn, dealt with several cases of election fraud in the 2020 election, Dhillon wrote. It has 1.46 million registered voters, according to the county clerk.
The news comes as FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News on Sunday that “a thing or two” will happen this week regarding a long-debunked claim President Donald Trump has made that the 2020 election was rigged. Dhillon said during that same show that she’s still pursuing voter rolls from 30 states and Washington, D.C.
“Imagine what sloppy or worse situations the non-compliant states are trying to prevent the federal government from learing,” Dhillon wrote on X Monday.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, accused Trump of weaponizing the Justice Department to “sabotage” and “interfere” in state elections. Earlier this year, federal prosecutors opened investigations into an Arizona and Georgia county’s election results.
In Arizona, the FBI sought records to verify Maricopa County’s 2020 election results, which Trump lost. The inquiry is complicated as Arizona law mandates counties to hold federal election ballots for no more than 24 months. Georgia’s Fulton County has been one of the epicenters of 2020 election claims, including the now-dismissed racketeering case against Trump and 18 others.
If the Michigan county failed to comply with the letter, Dhillon threatened to seek a court order to compel the release.
Dhillon demands ballots based on 2020 claims
Dhillon wrote in her letter to Wayne County’s clerk that she requested ballots after learning about voter fraud allegations and convictions of Wayne County residents.
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According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 154 million people voted in the 2024 Presidential Election.
“Based on this history of fraud convictions and other allegations concerning the election procedures in Wayne County and,” Dhillon wrote, “for the purpose of ensuring that the foregoing federal election laws were not violated in the November 2024 federal election, we are requesting that you produce the following election-related records from that election: all ballots (including absentee and provisional), ballot receipts, and ballot envelopes.”
Those cases included Nancy Juanita Williams, whom Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged in 2021 for forging 26 absentee ballot applications. Williams’ case ended in 2023 with a guilty plea for seven counts of receiving payments to influence a vote, according to Wayne County Third Circuit Court records.
Dhillon also cited the cases against Carless Clark and John Paul Parana, both of whom were charged with impersonating a person to vote in an election, to justify her demands. According to 36th District Court records, Clark pleaded guilty to forging her grandson’s signature on his absentee ballot envelope in 2022. Parana pleaded guilty in 2021 to forging his daughter’s signature on her 2020 ballot, according to Nessel’s office.
The attorney also pointed to the Costantino v. Detroit, where a group of Wayne County voters sued the city of Detroit, alleging that the city processed and counted ballots from people who didn’t appear in the qualified voter file, instructed clerks to not verify absentee ballot signatures and coached voters to cast votes for then-presidential candidate Joe Biden.
A Wayne County Circuit Court ruled the plaintiffs didn’t substantiate their claims and that a demand for an election audit was unnecessary. The case reached the Michigan Supreme Court, which affirmed an appellate court’s order rejecting the lawsuit’s claims. Attorneys agreed to dismiss the case on Jan. 7.
“Using these prosecutions and recycling debunked 2020 election conspiracy theories as justification to demand copies of the ballots of Michigan residents is a clear attempt to bully clerks and spread fear, even after Donald Trump won Michigan in 2024,” Nessel said in a Sunday statement.
Trump won Michigan in the 2024 election, but lost in Wayne County. He earned 33.6% of the vote, while former Vice President Kamala Harris earned 62.5% of the vote. According to official Wayne County election results, More than 859,000 voters cast a ballot in the county.