Lansing — The Board of State Canvassers voted Thursday to give Republican candidate for governor Perry Johnson a spot on the August primary ballot but to disqualify another GOP hopeful, Ralph Rebandt.
The unanimous decision in favor of Johnson, a wealthy businessman from Bloomfield Hills, came from the bipartisan panel despite a whistleblower who alleged Johnson’s campaign falsified petition documents.
The Detroit News obtained an affidavit signed by a Johnson campaign consultant Wednesday, a day before the meeting. The affidavit claimed that Johnson’s team ran sheets featuring more than 10,000 signatures through a printer to add a required “paid for” statement after the forms were signed.
A political action committee supporting another GOP candidate, U.S. Rep. John James of Shelby Township, had delivered the affidavit to police.
However, members of the canvassing board said they hadn’t received the affidavit or any information that they could act on during Thursday’s meeting to prevent Johnson from making the ballot.
“We have nothing,” said Richard Houskamp, a Republican member of the canvassing board.
Before the affidavit became public, the Michigan Bureau of Elections, which examined Johnson’s petitions, determined he turned in 22,406 valid signatures, more than 7,000 above the required 15,000-signature threshold for candidates for governor.
Michael Pattwell, a lawyer working with Mission Michigan, the PAC supporting James, and Charlie Spies, a lawyer for the James campaign, had asked the board to delay qualifying Johnson for the ballot and to investigate the claims in the affidavit.
“That is forgery under the election law,” Pattwell said of the allegations. “This is not even a close call.”
But Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a Democratic board member, emphasized that the affidavit wasn’t before the panel.
“You’re asking us to consider something that we haven’t seen at all, based upon a newspaper story. … It’s impossible for us to do that,” Gurewitz said.
Jonathan Burns, a lawyer for Johnson’s campaign, described the affidavit as hearsay.
“It appears to have come from a mentally ill, disgruntled former staffer,” Burns said at one point.
The board voted 4-0 to qualify Johnson for the ballot.
Johnson, who is in a four-candidate primary race for the Republican nomination for governor, has already spent more than $10 million on TV ads promoting his campaign and has said he’ll spend “whatever it takes” to become Michigan’s next governor. He made his fortune developing quality controls for the auto industry.
In 2022, Johnson also ran for governor but didn’t make the primary ballot because of a wave of fraudulent petition signatures that led to five Republicans being disqualified.
On Thursday, the canvassing board disqualified Rebandt, a pastor from Elmira, from this year’s GOP primary race, determining he hadn’t submitted enough valid petition signatures.
Rebandt submitted 18,214 signatures, 3,214 above the 15,000 required of candidates for governor.
The bureau sampled 750 signatures. He needed 618 of them to be valid to make the Aug. 4 ballot. However, only 533 of them were found to be valid. Of the 217 signatures ruled out, 110 came from people who weren’t registered to vote, 36 didn’t match the signature on file with the state and 22 listed the voter at an invalid city or township.
Rebandt said he intended to fight the board’s decision, which could mean a lawsuit is on the way.
“We’ve been saying winners find a way,” Rebandt said.
The board also found Thursday that Democrat Kim Thomas of Battle Creek didn’t turn in enough valid signatures to make the ballot for governor.
Also, Republican Bernadette Smith of Byron Center didn’t submit enough signatures to make the ballot for the U.S. Senate.
cmauger@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Perry Johnson makes the ballot, Ralph Rebandt doesn’t
Reporting by Craig Mauger, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
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