A little more than five months before the 2024 presidential election, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sat with her counterparts from Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania on NBC’s Meet the Press and lied about the rigged 2020 election being “the most secure in American history.” They seemed amazed that a lot of Americans still didn’t believe them, as they opined on “the threat to democracy.”
The topic of noncitizens voting in U.S. elections came up. Benson proclaimed that she had “good news for everyone.”
The far-left Democrat who holds the keys to swing-state Michigan’s elections assured viewers that she and her fellow secretaries “all … want to make sure only U.S. citizens are voting in our elections.”
“So we’re all committed to that, and I think it’s really important for folks to know that regardless of our party affiliation, we’re doing all that we can and more to ensure, as the facts show in all of our states, that only U.S. citizens vote,” Benson told faux journalist Kristen Welker and whoever watches the Sunday morning talking points bulletin for the Democrat Party.
Benson was lying again.
If she really wanted to ensure that only U.S. citizens vote in Michigan elections, she would have lent her support to a resolution that would have required proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote in Michigan. She didn’t, and her Democrat allies in the Republican-controlled House killed the popular election-integrity measure. The resolution needed a supermajority to pass, meaning at least 16 Democrats would have had to stand with the narrow Republican majority to pass a “common-sense way to close a massive loophole in our current system,” as the measure’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Bryan Posthumus, put it. Not a single Democrat voted for it.
‘Americans, and Only Americans’
Benson, who would like to be Michigan’s next leftist governor, also could back a citizen-only voting amendment to the state constitution. But don’t hold your breath. Organizers of a petition drive expect a pitched battle on their hands going up against an extreme partisan who has brazenly stretched election law to the point of snapping in six-plus years in office.
But Americans for Citizen Voting late last month launched its statewide petition drive to place a Citizen Only Voting Amendment on the 2026 ballot with momentum and wide voter support.
“Today was more than a launch — it was a statement,” said Kurt O’Keefe, treasurer for Americans for Citizen Voting-Michigan, in a press release following a kickoff press conference at the Oakland (Michigan) County Republican Party Headquarters. “The people of Michigan are ready to take a stand and say clearly that our elections should be decided by Americans, and only Americans.”
Organizers said some attendees drove three hours to the petition launch.
Paul Jacob, chairman of Americans for Citizen Voting, said the constitutional amendment would do three things: Clearly state that only U.S. citizens may vote in elections in the Great Lakes State; demand that the secretary of state’s office thoroughly vet whether registrants on the voter rolls are citizens; and require voter ID at the polls.
“All of these issues have support among Republicans, many independents, and Democrats,” Jacob told The Federalist in a phone interview.
Polling shows as much — in Michigan and across the country. An Americans for Citizen Voting poll earlier this year found 87 percent of respondents believe only U.S. citizens should vote in Michigan elections. Another 84 percent support requiring people to show proof of U.S. citizenship when they vote, with 73 percent expressing strong support. And 82 percent of respondents said they would support a state constitutional amendment “that would clarify that only citizens of the United States are eligible to vote in state and local Michigan elections and require those registering to vote to show proof of U.S. citizenship and those voting to show a picture ID to cast a ballot.”
‘Very Alarming’
Benson and her fellow leftists say such restrictions are unnecessary. They say federal law already makes it a felony for noncitizens to vote in federal elections and that instances of foreign nationals voting in Michigan elections are “extremely isolated.” It happens, however, and perhaps more frequently than open-border Democrats want to admit.
The secretary of state’s office in late October announced charges against a Chinese foreign national for voting in the 2024 presidential election. The U.S. Department of Justice followed with its own charges against Haoxiang Gao for registering and voting.
Gao was a University of Michigan student “who illegally registered to vote in the days before the 2024 presidential election, apparently using his University of Michigan student ID, and then cast a ballot in the election at a polling location located at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, in Ann Arbor, Michigan,” states a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan. The noncitizen, whose vote counted in the election “because there is no way for election officials to retrieve it once it’s been put through a tabulator,” has since fled the U.S.
“Secretary Jocelyn Benson has hurt the public’s trust in Michigan elections as her department failed to prevent this illegal vote from being cast and will count it in the results next week,” Rep. John Moolenaar, R-Mich., said in a statement following the announcement of charges.
Feeling the political heat, Benson instructed her office to conduct a review of the state’s voter records. The review identified 15 people “who appear to be non-U.S. citizens and cast a ballot in the 2024 General Election,” the secretary of state claimed.
But another review using the Social Security Administration’s Help America Vote Verification system found 34,535 individuals whose names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers did not match “any record found in the database,” state Sen. Ruth Johnson reported following the election.
“That is a huge increase from previous years and very alarming to me. Far-left operatives have pushed for changes in our constitution and laws that allow for same-day registration with no ID and our clerks do not have the ability to check or verify citizenship,” the Republican and Benson’s predecessor in the secretary of state’s office said in a press release. She noted that election laws passed under Democrat leadership have “stripped away” election integrity, leaving Michigan with “no system to check if people are registering or voting who are not eligible.”
“The only way the student at UM was caught is because he requested his ballot back from the clerk,” Johnson added.
‘Worst Nightmare’
Proponents of the citizens-only constitutional amendment believe the time to act is now.
“This is about confidence in our elections. As a republic we absolutely need confidence in our elections,” O’Keefe said in an interview with The Federalist.
Organizers of the petition will have a little less than six months to collect 446,198 signatures. Jacob said Americans for Citizen Voting’s goal is to get at least 200,000 extra, “to leave no doubt.” In dealing with an adversarial secretary of state’s office openly hostile to citizen-only voting proposals, it’s a good idea to have more than enough signatures.
Jacob thinks a citizens-only ballot measure would be Benson’s “worst nightmare.”
“If this is on the ballot the same time she is on the ballot [for governor], she is not going to have answers as to why noncitizens have voted, why she’s done nothing about it, and why she hasn’t been transparent,” he said. “She’s been terrible on these election-integrity issues, and it’s going to come back to bite her.”
‘Keep Pushing’
If the past several years in the movement are any indication, things look good for the ballot issue. Last year alone, voters in eight states overwhelmingly approved constitutional amendment ballot questions seeking to ensure noncitizens cannot vote in state and local elections.
There’s a similar question on the ballot this November in Texas, where enough legislative Democrats joined Republicans to garner the required supermajority support for the constitutional amendment vote. Arkansas, Kansas, and South Dakota are expected to have citizen-only referenda in 2026, as well. Efforts, too, are expected in Nebraska and Tennessee, Jacob said. Currently, 20 state constitutions clearly prohibit noncitizens from voting in local and state elections.
“We think we can get to 25 by the end of this election cycle. We may even get to 30,” the grassroots leader said. “We’re going to just keep pushing.”