When The Detroit News told the story of Jocelyn Benson’s biggest failure as secretary of state—that at least 16 non-citizens voted illegally last year—it hewed to her talking points, down to the percentages.
Michigan Enjoyer, through a Freedom of Information Act request, obtained email correspondence between Secretary of State spokeswoman Angela Benander and Detroit News journalist Craig Mauger that pushed the narrative that a review had been done on non-citizens voting in Michigan.
Craig Mauger’s story showed such fidelity to the Benson talking points that he misrepresented the data.
There were at least 16 illegal votes in the Nov. 5 election. Yet the Detroit News headline reads: “Michigan review finds 15 probable non-U.S. citizens who voted in November.”
That’s a direct grab from a Benson talking point, furnished by aide Angela Benander, punctuation original: “This review found 15 people who allegedly cast a ballot in the November 2024 General Election and appear to be probable noncitizens.”
That difference between 15 and 16 is not a minor concern. In a world of people who read headlines rather than stories, this gives people the wrong impression. The truth is, no one, including Michigan’s top election official, Jocelyn Benson, knows how many ineligible voters are on the voter rolls or how many vote in our elections.
The difference between 15 and 16 was noted by the seven Michigan Republicans in Congress. In an April 4 letter to Benson, they asked, “Why was Haoxiang Gao not included in the count of 15 noncitizens you identified as having voted in the November election?”
Normally, you would expect the press to ask that question first.
It’s not until the third paragraph that Mauger mentions the Haoxiang Gao vote.
And the second paragraph is another Benson talking point.
Benander writes, punctuation original:
“These results bear out what data has consistently shown: noncitizen voting is extremely rare Combined with the single case reported last year of a Chinese national allegedly illegally voting in Ann Arbor, 16 votes out of more than 5.7 million cast – 0.00028% of all votes”
Mauger writes: “The findings, released Thursday to The Detroit News, indicated the potentially illegal votes represented less than 0.0003% of the 5.7 million total ballots submitted.”
“Released Thursday to the Detroit News” is meant to tell the reader that this is a scoop. And to the naked eye, that’s what this looks like. But it’s not. Scoops don’t come with talking points, and adhere to the talking points. Planted stories do.
In January, The Detroit News also scooped everybody on the Jocelyn Benson for governor campaign. That story began:
“Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democratic former law school dean who oversaw two presidential elections in battleground Michigan, is launching a campaign Wednesday to become the state’s next governor.”
In an interview with The Detroit News, Benson said she wants to be known as “the governor who puts transparency and efficiency at the forefront.”
Somehow, over many hundreds of words, Mauger never mentions the illegal Chinese voter. Benson’s track record was worth mentioning when it was to her credit (“oversaw two presidential elections in battleground Michigan…”), but when there was a pothole on Benson’s road to governor, the News avoided it. That’s not a news instinct, it’s a PR instinct. If shaping stories to a public official’s liking is the cost of being first, don’t be.
Then there are the text messages. In the release about the 15 additional illegal votes, the secretary of state’s office sent Mauger 13 pages of text messages, but he quotes only one message in its entirety. Benander, the Benson aide, told Mauger that the texts could have been exempt, under “frank communications” grounds—and at least one text was so exempt.
But, “in the interest of transparency,” they sent the texts anyway. The News only published one text in its entirety. Benson felt the need to share the information; Mauger felt the need to gatekeep it. In the interest of transparency, we published all 13 pages.
One talking point The News did not publish came in the form of a question from Benander: “Why wasn’t this review of voting rolls done before?”
It turns out that the secretary of state’s claims about election security were offered without evidence, as the department didn’t have any.
Benander writes:
“Prior to this review, the department was dedicating very scarce staff resources to implement a major overhaul of our election system as passed by Michigan’s voters under Proposal 2 of 2022.
Once that process was complete, we were able to address rampant speculation and misinformation claiming large numbers of noncitizens are regularly casting ballots in our elections. The results of this review provide further evidence that’s in line with previous findings from other states and nationally—noncitizen voting is very rare.”
Only in the seventh year of Benson’s term was her team able to “address rampant speculation and misinformation” on non-citizen voting. But in September, a month before Gao voted, Benson told Congress there was a “myth of noncitizen voting.”
After Gao voted, Benson’s team said there was a single-known instance of non-citizen voting. After a review finds 16 cases, Benson’s team now claims it is “misinformation” that large numbers of non-citizens are voting—as if 16, or one, are not too large a number to tolerate. The standard is zero. Yet Benson pats herself on the back that it’s only 16, and The Detroit News joins her.
Just how much non-citizen voting should be allowed before it’s happening in large numbers? We never hear that number. Benson’s team was never asked.
How much non-citizen voting do we have in Michigan? We don’t know, because Jocelyn Benson doesn’t know.
While the average reader would come away thinking Benson’s review was exhaustive, the details tell a different story.
Benander writes:
“We reviewed two groups of people:
- Those who had voting history recorded in the QVF for November 2024 General Election and were also recorded as showing a noncitizen document for a CARS [Customer and Automotive Records System for non-citizen driver’s license holders] transaction after that election
- Those who voted in November 2024, were recorded as a noncitizen in CARS, and it had been several years since they were required to provide proof of legal presence for a CARS transaction”
That means Benson’s review only accounted for non-citizen voters with a driver’s license.
That’s different from proving that 5.7 million voting Michiganders last year were U.S. citizens, minus these 16. And it’s leagues different from proving that only 16 non-citizens voted in November. Illegal aliens with no driver’s license would not appear in the CARS database. Benson’s analysis was limited by its very nature.
State Rep. Bryan Posthumus, a Rockford Republican, says he has the answer to Michigan’s non-citizen voter problem: a constitutional amendment requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
As Posthumus said on X after the Benson probe: “First it was 1, now it’s 15. The truth is, we have no idea how many. And now that everyone knows the loophole exists, how many more if we don’t close it!”
Read the full email from Benander to Mauger here:
Anna Hoffman is a hockey mom of three living in Ann Arbor. Follow her on X @shoesonplease.
James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast. Join him in conversation on X @downi75.
