By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
Actions last week in Lansing have thrown the Republican gubernatorial primary into disarray. Five candidates have been taken off the August ballot by the Michigan Bureau of Elections and the Michigan Board of State Canvassers due to invalid signatures on their nominating petitions.
The candidates who have been taken off the August ballot-at least pending a successful court challenge-are Donna Brandenburg, Michael Brown, James Craig, Perry Johnson and Michael Markey. Craig, the former Detroit police chief, and Johnson, a businessman from Oakland County had been considered among the front runners for the nomination.
The five candidates had relied on outside third-party individuals to gather signatures for their nominating petitions. Many of those signatures turned out be to fraudulent and invalid, with some signatures apparently forged, some names not matching addresses and some names being of dead people.
The State Board of Canvassers ruled that petitions containing false and fraudulent signatures couldn’t be considered which brought the five candidates below the 15,000 signature threshold on their petitions. Johnson in his lawsuit claims that valid signatures shouldn’t be thrown out even if they’re on the same petition with questionable ones.
State residents should know the outcome of the legal battles soon as state officials have said that the deadline for printing the August primary ballots is coming in the next several days. Late last week, the Michigan Court of Appeals ordered the parties to submit briefs Tuesday (May 31) and said they would issue a ruling without hearing oral arguments.
Brown, a Michigan State Police captain and a resident of Stevensville, announced last week that he is withdrawing from the race and will not challenge the Board of Canvassers’ decision in court. He announced his run for governor last fall, citing the state’s response to the pandemic and to the 2020 public safety crisis as two major reasons for his run.
“It appears that after my campaign’s signature gathering was complete, individuals independently contracted for a portion of our signature gathering and validation jumped onto other campaigns and went on a money grab,” Brown said in a written statement. “They were involved in allegedly fraudulent signature gathering activities with these campaigns causing the Michigan Bureau of Elections to declare all of the signatures connected to those individuals as invalid. I cannot and will not be associated with this activity.”
“We built this campaign on common sense conservative principles with a positive message of prosperity, safety and respect for all the citizens of Michigan,” Brown said in the prepared statement. “The countless hours, miles, conversations and tireless effort will not be in vain as I continue to fight for the future of Michigan.”
He announced his run for governor last fall, citing the state’s response to the pandemic and to the 2020 public safety crisis as two major reasons for his run. He has campaigned around the state since then and earned the endorsement of legendary rocker and conservative icon Ted Nugent.
The five candidates still in the running for the Republican gubernatorial nomination are Tudor Dixon of Lansing, Ryan Kelley of Allendale, Ralph Rebandt of Farmington Hills, Kevin Rinke of Bloomfield Hills and Garrett Soldano of Mattawan.
Berrien County audiences have heard from four of the then 10 gubernatorial candidates over the months: Brown, Dixon, Johnson and Kelley. Johnson toured the Twin Cities area earlier this year while the other three spoke before the South County Republican Club last summer in Buchanan.
Dixon and Kelley both spoke out last June against Whitmer’s policy decisions, especially what they see as her overreach of power during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dixon is a Norton Shores resident, mother of four, cancer survivor and television news host. Kelley is an Ottawa County real estate agent.
Dixon called herself a “conservative outsider running for governor”, a hard worker and someone with team building experience. Kelley said he would reform the Michigan Public Health Code so unelected bureaucrats have “authoritarian rule” over state residents. He also spoke in favor of medical freedom, against vaccine passports and for election integrity.
In other election news, Cass County officials are going back to the drawing board after the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled in May that the Cass County Apportionment Commission incorrectly drew county commissioner district boundaries last year.
Cassopolis resident James Pedersen filed the lawsuit, alleging that the map adopted by the apportionment commission incorrectly divided the city of Dowagiac to be parts of other districts rather than keeping it whole. He said the 2021 map approved by the apportionment commission violated state law by not having all districts contiguous and by dividing the city of Dowagiac and joining it to other districts for partisan advantage.
The Court of Appeals ruled May 12 in an unpublished opinion that the Cass County plan did not meet all the requirements of state law. They vacated the plan and ordered that the Cass County Apportionment Commission adopt a new plan. That commission was expected to meet this week to discuss the issue.
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