By Patrick Colbeck

During the 2024 election, we had several groups of volunteers monitoring what the MI SoS refers to as the DailyBallotsCast report.  These groups include the Election Integrity Force, CheckMyVote and independent analysts like Tim Vetter.  The analyses by these groups concluded that over 100,000 illegal votes were cast in MI per the MI SoS official records.  The MI SoS has concluded that the indications of illegal votes were the result of a “formatting error” in the script used to generate the report in question.  With the support of those monitoring and reporting on these illegal votes, I have collected a growing body of evidence indicating that what the MI SoS characterized as a “formatting error” was not a “formatting error” after all.

It is quite possible that “meddling kids” (my term for election integrity activists) prevented MI SoS Jocelyn Benson from casting 125,428 illegal votes and turning Michigan’s electoral votes blue in the 2024 general election. Let’s see what evidence there is in support of this assertion.

Background

Due to the dubious Proposal 2022-2 which amended Michigan’s constitution to require at least nine days of early voting in Michigan, in-person voting for the November 5, 2024 general election commenced on September 30, 2024. Similar to the reports available via FOIA on Absentee Ballots, the Michigan Secretary of State issued DailyBallotsCast reports for in-person early voting starting on September 30, 2024. These reports indicated many instances of the same Voter ID being associated with multiple votes. A single voter casting multiple votes is illegal per MCL 168.932a. Per the DailyBallotsCast report provided by the MI SoS, the number of these illegal votes escalated each day culminating in an astounding 125,428 illegal votes as revealed in the October 28, 2024 report.

Findings

MI Attorney Matt DePerno issued a post on X on behalf of the Election Integrity Force that stated that “114,545 Michigan voters….cast…164,568 excess ballots”. The post received significant traction as evidenced by over 6 Million views.

I worked with Phani Mantravadi of CheckMyVote.org and Tim Vetter to independently confirm this assertion.  While they affirmed that there was a significant issue with multiple ballots being cast by the same voter id, their analysis revealed a different illegal voter and vote count ( “82,467 voter ids” cast “125,428 ballots”).

Subsequent to my request, Patty McMurray of the Gateway Pundit released a more detailed story on the illegal votes.

Despite the difference in the number of alleged illegal votes, all three analysts agreed that well over 100,000 illegal votes were cast in a presidential election featuring a vote margin of 80,156 votes in Michigan. My own analysis of the data agrees with the independent assertions by Tim Vetter and Phani Mantravadi that 125,428 illegal votes were cast per the October 28, 2024 MI SoS DailyBallotsCast report.

Official Explanation

In the wake of this revelation, the MI Secretary of State worked quickly to dismiss any claims of illegal votes being cast. The October 29, 2024 DailyBallotsCast report issued by the Michigan Bureau of Elections featured 1 illegal voter reflecting a dramatic drop from the 125,428 tally.

Their so-called “State of Michigan Election Fact Center” posted the following official explanation for the previous evidence of illegal votes.

The key assertions made by the MI Secretary of State were:

• The QVF does NOT allow for multiple ballots to be accepted for the same voter or voter ID
• The Bureau of elections identified a formatting error in a routine report
• The formatting error in the data export process generated a line in the exported report for each formerly associated address of each individual listed, resulting in the same ballot for the same voter appearing on multiple lines of information all associated with one unique Voter ID
• Each of these voters had one vote recorded for this election

Please note that the MI SoS provided zero evidence in support of their assertions.

RNC Response

On October 30, 2024, Republican National Committee (RNC) Co-Chair Lara Trump issued a tweet that “CONFIRMED it was a glitch in the system”. 

I do not know what data was presented to Lara and her team in support of such an assertion, but it is clear to myself and others that have been looking at the data that it was not a “glitch”.

Why would the RNC provide cover for the apparent malfeasance of the MI Secretary of State?

Observations

In the wake of these events, I worked with Phani Mantravadi and Tim Vetter to further investigate what was clear evidence of 125,428 illegal votes.

Observation 1:  Illegal Vote Count Resembles Machine-Based Step Function

Analysis of the illegal vote counts on a day-by-day basis seems to indicate discrete “steps” in the number of illegal votes cast.

The illegal vote tallies evident from MI SoS DailyBallotsCast report seem to fall into 4 basic steps or phases:

• Step 1: 9/30-10/18: 0-16 illegal votes
• Step 2: 10/21-10/25: 1999-7363 illegal votes
• Step 3: 10/28: Huge jump to 125,428 illegal votes
• Step 4: 10/29-10/30: 1 illegal vote

Based upon the information available it is entirely plausible that these steps reflect the following narratives inside the Kamala Harris campaign as we neared election day on November 5th:

• Step 1: “Polls show we are beating Donald Trump”
• Step 2: “Early returns indicate that Republicans are exceeding turnout projections. Set aside a group of voters to allocate ballots to if needed.”
• Step 3: “We are getting our butts kicked. Ratchet up the number of voters in the reserve pool.”
• Step 4: “They caught us with our hands in the cookie jar. Reset the voter history and cleanup the audit trail”

Obviously, further investigation is warranted, but the use of electronic voting systems connected to the state Qualified Voter File unnecessarily enables such a scenario.

Observation 2: Illegal Vote Count County Distribution Appears Machine-Based

Analysis of the illegal vote counts on a geographic basis seems to indicate a machine-based distribution of illegal votes across the state proportional to the population of each county.

The distribution of illegal votes across all 83 Michigan counties makes it highly unlikely that the full scope of any malfeasance would be detected by recount since statewide recounts are extremely expensive and rare.

Observation 3: Illegal Voter Addresses

Every voter who casts a vote in the State of Michigan must have a valid address in order to be eligible to receive a ballot. The DailyBallotsCast report indicated that 82,674 voters cast multiple ballots. Patty McMurray of the Gateway Pundit decided to investigate whether or not those casting multiple ballots were eligible to vote in the first place.

Patty focused upon the one voter ID that was used to allegedly cast 29 votes. This voter is tied to 19 different addresses. She decided to look into those 19 addresses, and what she found was disturbing. 

Summary of findings:

• Only 3 of the addresses are single-family residential homes
• 11300 E. 7 Mile and 1152 Holcomb Street addresses are apartment complex which must by law include an apartment number (they didn’t)
• 2640 Trumbull and 562 Marlborough addresses are valid but the voter’s name tied to the vote ID is not registered to vote at that address
• 10100 Harper Street address is a Rehab center
• 12260 Camden St is a Detroit Faith Clinic.
• 13220 Woodward Ave is an Oasis Emergency Shelter for men
• 1401 W. Fort St is a Detroit US Postal Service location
• 14230 Kercheval is a food pantry
• 1820 Mount Elliott St is a soup kitchen
• 1950 Trumbull and 23 E. Adams addresses are churches
• 438 St. Antoine St is a day center
• 4390 Conner is an address for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen
• 4785 Hurlbut is a duplex but no valid unit number is provided
• 8642 is the address for Catholic Charities

If a voter is not eligible to vote, it begs the question how they were allowed to cast even a single ballot much less multiple ballots.

Observation 4:  Unable to Reproduce “Formatting Error”

In response to the MI SoS “Formatting Error” explanation for 125,428 illegal votes, I wanted to obtain sufficient information to replicate their “formatting error”. I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to obtain such information. If they were telling the truth, I would be able to replicate their “formatting error”. If, however, they were not telling the truth, I would be able to assert that the MI SoS was engaged in a cover-up of 125,428 illegal votes being cast in the 2024 general election in Michigan.

Rather than provide the data necessary to corroborate their “formatting error” assertion, they denied my FOIA request.

In response to their denial, I submitted an appeal. They denied my appeal.

They do not appear to be interested in independent validation of their “formatting error” assertion. This response seems to indicate an attempt to cover-up malfeasance.

Observation 5:  Communications Cover-Up

A week after I submitted my request for information necessary to replicate their “formatting error”, I submitted a request for email communications pertinent to the illegal votes. I waited a week after my initial FOIA request to see how the MI SoS would react.

The MI SoS responded with an exorbitant fee of $5,313.66. I submitted an appeal of their fee assessment. They rejected my appeal. I have since paid their requested deposit amount in order to obtain the desired information. I am now waiting upon them to provide the requested information. Myself and others have noticed that the amount of the FOIA fee is typically proportional to their desire to prevent the release of the information. Legal action is likely.

Observation 6: QVF Multiple Ballot Policy Enforcement

In their official explanation for the illegal votes, the MI SoS asserted that “the QVF does NOT allow for multiple ballots to be accepted for the same voter or Voter ID”. This begs the following questions:

• How is this policy enforced?
• How exactly are clerks and poll workers prevented from issuing multiple ballots via QVF UI?
• How exactly are MI SoS workers and their NGO partners with direct access to the QVF database prevented from updating the database to show multiple vote entries?

Rather than provide evidence in support of their assertion, the MI SoS continues their policy of “trust me”. Sorry. I don’t trust them.

Observation 7: Single Voters with Multiple Addresses

The MI SoS asserts that it was a “formatting error in the data export process (that) generated a line in the exported report for each formerly associated address of each individual voter listed”. If this were the case, it stands to reason that all of the voters listed in the DailyBallotsCast report who only voted once would not have voted at any different address in previous elections. I subsequently asked Phani Mantravadi of CheckMyVote.org to test this assertion by analyzing the voting history of those who the SoS said cast only one vote. It turns out that 298,000 voters had voted from different addresses in at least one other election (2020, 2022 and 2024 analyzed).  Why was there only 82,467 people who voted more than once singled out in their report?

Please note that only 51,096 voter id’s fit the MI SoS profile for the “formatting error”.  That indicates that at least 31,371 of the 82,467 illegal voters in their DailyBallotsCast report are not explained by their “glitch” theory.

Observation 8: Secret Ballot Conundrum

The MI SoS asserts “each of these voters only had one vote recorded for this election”. MI citizens have a constitutional right to a secret ballot. How could the MI SoS issue a definitive statement that none of the voter ids with multiple vote entries were allowed to cast multiple ballots?

Rather than provide evidence in support of their assertion, the MI SoS continues their policy of “trust me”. Sorry. I still don’t trust them.

Observation 9:  December QVF Voting History Absent

In the wake of the voter history revelations provided by the October 28, 2024 DailyBallotsCast report, election integrity analysts were eagerly awaiting the release of the December QVF from the MI SoS so that they could analyze the official voter history data for the 2024 election. When it was finally released on December 2, 2024, the QVF had ZERO voting history for the November 5, 2024 election.

Against this backdrop, please note the following:

• MCL 168.813 requires local clerks to update the QVF within 7 days of the election.
• MCL 168.509q requires voting history to be maintained in the QVF for a period of not less than 5 years

The failure to provide voting history in the QVF was inconsistent with previous QVF releases.

Observation 10: Voter History Update Discrepancy

When Phani Mantravadi inquired of the MI Department of State (MDOS) why their December Qualified Voter File (QVF) did not include any voter history data, the MDOS ran local clerks under the bus.

All it would take is for one local clerk to have updated their voting history to the QVF within 7 days of the election to illustrate the fallacy of the MDOS assertion. Subsequent inquiries to clerks across the state of Michigan indicate that most if not all local clerks had updated their voter history data in compliance with MCL 168.813. The assertions of at least 10 clerks to this effect has been validated thus far on the basis of FOIA requests.

Observation 11: MI Bureau of Elections is Directing County Clerks Not to Provide List of Voters

There is evidence that the MI SoS is interfering with the collection of voter history audit trail data by telling county clerks not to respond to such FOIA requests except to direct them to their office.

This interference is designed to prevent identification of any discrepancies between the voter history information spewed by state versus county election officials. This interference is particularly concerning in that some municipalities such as Detroit have dispensed with poll books altogether and have opted to enter voter data directly into the state QVF. This approach effectively eliminates the audit trail for the election records pertaining to the actions of local election officials and state election officials. It would effectively make the state voter records the only election records and officially signal the end of the local control of Michigan’s elections.

Local, distributed control of election records is one of the best defenses against election fraud. On the other hand, state-based, centralized control of election records is one of the best enablers of election fraud. In this light, it makes it pretty clear why the MI SoS continues its push to centralize the management of our elections.

Observation 12: MI SoS “Final” List of Voters Still Shows Illegal Votes

When the MI SoS finally provided a version of the December QVF that showed voting history, this version still showed 201 illegal votes distributed across the state.

201 illegal votes is still a significant number of illegal votes. In contrast to the quick response of the MI SoS in the wake of evidence of 125,428 illegal votes, there has been no update to their “election facts” website to address 201 illegal votes. Meanwhile, the MI Attorney General is promoting her prosecution of 4 cases of individuals voting twice in St. Clair Shores. This legal action appears to be political motivated. The Macomb County Prosecutor, Peter Lucido, refused to pursue legal action against the 4 individuals and is rumored to be considering a run for Michigan Attorney General.

Observation 13: County Voter Counts Do Not Equal State Voter Counts

Another indication of malfeasance or gross negligence in the management of voter history data by the State of Michigan under MI SoS Jocelyn Benson is the fact that the County Statements of Votes Cast vote totals do not match the QVF Votes Cast figure.

The state QVF votes cast should simply be a roll-up of the votes cast figures from local clerks. It certainly appears that either all 83 county clerks are manipulating voter history data in their Statements of Votes Cast (SOVC) independent of their uploads to the state QVF or someone else with access to the state QVF is manipulating the voter history data.

Observation 14: History of Post-Election Manipulation of Voter History Data

All indications are that the MI SoS is manipulating voter history data not the counties. In a story by Jim Hoft posted at the Gateway Pundit, Tim Vetter and Phani Mantravadi provide evidence in support of this assertion.

The MI SoS has a history of updating voter history after the elections in an apparent attempt to complicate any attempt at auditing elections.  The voter history data captured in the state Qualified Voter File (QVF) changes drastically month over month when it should be static after election has been conducted. This appears to be a deliberate attempt to interfere with post-election audits. In support of this assertion, Benson has repeatedly ordered the destruction of poll book voter history data upon certification of the election results.

This destruction of poll book voter history data makes the state QVF voter history data the sole remaining authority for this audit data. Her orders to destroy such election records violates 52 USC Section 20701.

Conclusion

MI SoS Jocelyn Benson indeed appears to have been caught with her “hand in the cookie jar”. If it weren’t for the election monitoring efforts of the Election Integrity Force, Tim Vetter and Phani Mantravadi, it is highly likely that the 125,428 votes “banked” by the MI Secretary of State would have been used to erase the 80,156 vote Trump victory in Michigan.

As startling as this may seem, the 125,428 illegal votes is only the tip of the iceberg regarding elections malfeasance under MI Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. It is becoming increasingly clear to myself and others that the MI SoS is routinely engaged in unlawful election practices.  In fact, MI SoS Jocelyn Benson has already been found to have issued unlawful election guidance by at least 7 different courts.  We now need to go beyond observations of such malfeasance and prosecute those responsible for such malfeasance. While the politically-compromised justice system in Michigan has been reticent to take such actions, the new leadership at the federal Department of Justice provides at least a ray of hope that the rule of law and the integrity of our election system may yet be restored.

Special thanks to Phani Mantravadi, Tim Vetter, and Patty McMurray for their efforts to monitor and report on such malfeasance.