Lansing — Some of the most vocal critics of Michigan’s election system have said in recent weeks that they’re either working with President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice or asking for investigations into voting matters in the battleground state.
One lawyer has publicly suggested that Michigan’s elections director might be under investigation, and an activist has said her group had been asked to create a report on Michigan’s 2020 presidential election.
During a June 4 online meeting, Patrice Johnson, chairwoman of the organization Pure Integrity Michigan Elections, said the nearly 500-page report would be sent to the Justice Department, which is in charge of enforcing federal laws.
“We were asked basically to create a document about what happened in the 2020 elections in Michigan,” Johnson said. “That’s almost done, actually. It’s getting very close to fruition.”
She made the statement more than 2,000 days after Michiganians went to the polls in 2020.
Johnson didn’t specify who sought the report. She didn’t respond to a request for an interview. Her group’s website said the organization is led by volunteers and launched after the 2020 election to “restore election integrity.”
Meanwhile, a group of volunteers has also been combing through “nearly 1 million documents” from the 2020 presidential election in Wayne County, according to the conservative news website Gateway Pundit.
In the six years since the 2020 vote, Trump has claimed, without providing evidence to back up his assertions, that he lost Michigan to Democrat Joe Biden because of widespread fraud, a claim his supporters lost in court. Some of his supporters unsuccessfully attempted to overturn his loss.
Much of the president’s ire has focused on Wayne County, a Democratic stronghold and Michigan’s most populous county, where Detroit is located.
After the 2020 election, Trump personally pressured two Republican members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers not to sign the certification of the vote. Trump said Republicans had been “cheated on this election” and “everybody knows Detroit is crooked as hell,” according to audio recordings previously reviewed by The Detroit News.
After Trump won back the presidency in 2024, his administration’s Justice Department sought information on Michigan’s registered voter list and ballots submitted for the 2024 election in Wayne County.
Chris Thomas, Michigan’s former elections director, said it wasn’t clear to him yet where the digging by Trump’s supporters would eventually lead.
“You used to need evidence-based allegations to get the Department of Justice to engage in something,” Thomas said. “That’s no longer the case. Who knows where this goes?”
Web of calls for intervention in Michigan’s election
In January, the Justice Department raided the Fulton County election center in Georgia, another battleground state.
That maneuver has left some election officials in Michigan on edge about what might happen here.
In November, Michigan voters will elect a new governor, a new U.S. senator, a new attorney general and a new secretary of state and pick candidates to fill every seat in the state Legislature. Among those hoping to be the state’s next governor is Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s top election official.
On a prayer call in April, former Michigan state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, who wrote a book titled “The 2020 Coup,” said he’d also been working on a report about the 2020 election that he claimed would “accelerate” indictments.
Colbeck said the report would be going to “senior investigators” in Washington, D.C.
In recent days on social media, the Canton Township Republican has also called for a probe into Wayne County’s handling of the 2020 presidential election and said he filed “a criminal referral” to an unidentified agency against Jonathan Brater, Michigan’s elections director.
Colbeck accused Brater of abuse of authority, among other things.
Likewise, in May, Stefanie Lambert, a Michigan lawyer who has been criminally charged with improperly handling voting machines after the 2020 election, said she believes Brater himself is under “federal investigation.”
Angela Benander, spokeswoman for the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office, said the office had received no indication Brater is actually under investigation.
Lambert made the comment while being interviewed by Mark Forton, the former chairman of the Macomb County Republican Party.
“I’m hoping the Department of Justice gets involved in Michigan,” Forton said during their conversation. “The corruption is unbelievable.”
Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf seeks an investigation
While some Trump supporters have claimed there’s widespread election fraud in Michigan, such allegations have not been proven, even six years after the 2020 presidential election.
Biden beat Trump by 154,000 votes or 3 percentage points in November 2020 in Michigan. Trump did not pursue a recount in Michigan, while Biden gained 87 votes in a $3 million recount that Trump financed in Wisconsin. The outcome was upheld by bipartisan canvassing boards and a review by a Republican-controlled state Senate committee.
Yet, investigations and calls for federal intervention have continued.
Earlier this month, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf, who has advanced an array of theories about election wrongdoing over the years, said he asked Macomb County Prosecutor Pete Lucido to investigate noncitizens on voter rolls and in jury pools.
“The investigation I am requesting is on Secretary of State Benson and Director of Elections Brater,” Leaf wrote in an email to Lucido.
In the message, Leaf said he was sending a copy of his referral to the Justice Department.
Esther Wolfe, communications director for the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office, said the email address Leaf listed for her office wasn’t correct.
“No one in our office would have received this if it had been sent,” Wolfe said of Leaf’s message.
“The Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office does not investigate crime,” Wolfe added. “That is the job of law enforcement.”
The Justice Department didn’t respond to a request for comment from The Detroit News.
In April 2025, the Michigan Secretary of State’s office said it had conducted a months-long review and identified 15 individuals who allegedly weren’t U.S. citizens but still cast ballots in the November 2024 presidential election.
The findings indicated the potentially illegal votes represented less than 0.0003% of the 5.7 million total ballots submitted.
Will 2026 be a repeat of 2020?
About seven months before Leaf’s request, state Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt, R-Porter Township, and other Republican lawmakers asked the Department of Justice to deploy monitors to vote-counting facilities and provide general oversight for the state’s upcoming elections in 2026.
Their concerns centered on the fact that Benson, the state’s chief election official, will help manage the August and November 2026 elections while being on the ballot as a gubernatorial candidate.
Nesbitt, who is also a gubernatorial candidate, told an election integrity group on June 11 that he didn’t have a “clear way going forward” with the request of the Justice Department.
“I am going to continue to work with them to see where can we actually fit in,” Nesbitt said.
On the other side of the aisle, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, D-Royal Oak, is running for the U.S. Senate.
McMorrow said she’s heard from people all across the state this year with concerns about whether the elections will be secure and safe, and whether people will come after Michigan’s vote.
“We were at the epicenter of all of these attempts in 2020,” McMorrow said. “And it’s not surprising, but it is deeply concerning that we will be again.”
cmauger@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Michigan election critics push for investigations ahead of 2026 vote
Reporting by Craig Mauger, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Craig Mauger, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
