The Michigan Court of Appeals denied challenges from Republican gubernatorial candidates Perry Johnson and Michael Markey on Wednesday, dashing hopes for both candidates to appear on the ballot for the upcoming August primary election.
Johnson, an Oakland County businessman who poured millions into a gubernatorial bid launched in February, was the first of three disqualified Republican governor candidates who filed challenges to get a decision from a court.
In their opinion, Court of Appeals Judges Kirsten Frank Kelly, Michael Kelly and Noah Hood disagreed with the Johnson campaign's assertion that the Michigan Board of State Canvassers had an obligation to compare every signature submitted with the state's Qualified Voter File.
Right now in the US many state parties are having primaries to decide who will stand in November's election.
As with most places there are some processes and procedures for candidates to go through in order to get on the ballot and one of those is collection signatures on nomination forms. These nominations aren't votes, as a registered party member you could add your signature to any number of nominations, and these elections are internal to each party.
If one candidate for a were to be found to have bent the rules to get enough signatures, either forged signatures or signatures from non-existent or dead people, on their nomination form that would be a shame. For the GOP in Michigan no less than six out of eleven candidates were found to have committed such fraud.
When voter fraud is that endemic to a party you have to start to wonder and it looks as if the voters of Michigan are starting to wonder. The state which was rated as very likely to flip back to the Republicans in November last year is looking more and more secure for Democrat incumbent Gretchen Whiter.
