Let’s be blunt: Michigan Republicans, like their counterparts nationally, are no longer merely questioning elections. They are actively seeking to undermine them.
Their latest maneuvers, calling for federal intervention by baselessly smearing Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s ability to fairly oversee elections to cheering President Donald Trump’s pardons of the state’s alleged false electors, reveal a party more invested in manufacturing distrust than in protecting democracy.
Put together, these moves are not isolated issues. They form a strategy: cast doubt, sow suspicion, and demand federal oversight, all the while shifting focus from governance to grievance.
'Conflict of interest' gambit
On Thursday, GOP leaders in the Michigan Legislature demanded that the U.S. Department of Justice step in and monitor the state’s 2026 elections because Benson might have a personal political stake — she’s running for governor — and therefore cannot be trusted to run elections impartially.
But those who know how our elections work also know Michigan has a deeply decentralized system administered across 1,600+ local jurisdictions and that electoral oversight is routinely conducted with bipartisan monitors and observers.
What’s happening here is not about transparency, it’s about casting suspicion.
Rather than offering credible evidence of wrongdoing, these Republicans are demanding a federal takeover of state elections under the guise of “protecting fairness.”
That is opposite the principle of local control and further erodes public confidence.
The optics of a state handing over election control to Washington, D.C., are antithetical to stated conservative principles valuing states’ rights over those not explicitly delineated to the federal government.
Pardons of false electors
Furthering this attempt to undermine elections were the October pardons by Trump of 16 Michigan Republicans who allegedly signed on as a false slate of electors in 2020 in an effort to overturn the certified election results in the state.
The pardons, which were wholly unnecessary after the charges were dismissed, undercuts faith in the very system Republicans insist they are defending.
It is breathtakingly hypocritical.
Keep in mind that the Republicans charged in the false elector case were not exonerated. After having sat through hours of testimony in the case, it was clear to me that the evidence showed an attempt to try and overturn Joe Biden’s Electoral College win.
But a poorly handled investigation and an overreaching prosecution ultimately left the judge little choice but to reject the charges.
When you pardon those who seemingly tried to subvert the system and were already cleared of any consequences, how do you then credibly say you’re working to protect the system?
Why this matters
The integrity of elections is built by process, by transparency, and by predictable rules. In that regard, Michigan is among the best, having been ranked second in the nation for election administration in 2024 by the Elections Performance Index.
Released by the MIT Election Data and Science Lab, the report scored Michigan at 88 percent on the index, second only to New Mexico, which also scored 88 percent.
The report noted Michigan had shorter wait times for voters, far fewer registration and absentee ballot issues than the national average and a much lower rate of unreturned mail ballots. Michigan was also higher than the national average in both voter turnout (59.3 percent compared to 47.5 percent nationally) and voter registration (91 percent compared to 84 percent nationally).
Yet now, Republicans lawmakers seem fixated not on improving how we vote but on how they can discredit how we vote.
When political actors sow doubt in elections without credible evidence, they are not engaging in oversight — they are delegitimizing democracy.
When they then demand federal intervention in a state process because they don’t like the referee, they are undermining the system of state-run elections that the U.S. Constitution guarantees.
State Republicans’ relentless refusal to accept the basic legitimacy of our voting system aren’t signs of vigilance: they’re warnings.
If we continue down a path where power matters more than truth and sabotage masquerades as oversight, then the greatest threat to Michigan’s elections won’t come from foreign actors or technical glitches — it will come from those who claim to defend democracy while dismantling it from within.
- Jon King is the Michigan Advance’s editor-in-chief, having previously served as the outlet's senior reporter, covering education, elections and LGBTQ+ issues. King has been a journalist for more than 35 years and is the Past President of the Michigan Associated Press Media Editors Association who has been recognized for excellence numerous times, most recently in 2022 with the Best Investigative Story by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Cleary University. Jon and his family live in Howell. Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
