The last thing you’d want to do, after 16 foreigners vote in Michigan during a presidential election, is overreact.
So says Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat candidate for governor.
“This is a serious issue, one we must address with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer,” Benson said when announcing the findings of her months-long review. Turns out the “single illegal voter” we’ve heard about since October has company. There were at least 16 illegal voters, she now admits.
The sledgehammer Benson refers to is a constitutional amendment that would require proof of citizenship and no-loophole voter ID.
Rep. Bryan Posthumus, a Rockford Republican, has led the effort in the Legislature. A parallel effort is working to get the amendment on the Nov. 2026 ballot.
Benson’s scalpel is the Michigan Election Security Act. But even by Benson’s own explanation, her scalpel is built to be broken.
Benson’s plan would not have stopped Haoxiang Gao or the other 15 people from voting, nor would it stop anyone the next time.
“The Act will provide additional tools to help ensure eligible voters can easily register and vote, while helping election officials more effectively identify and remove ineligible voter registrations,” says Benson’s office.
The problem, of course, is that when someone votes early like Gao did, or on Election Day, their ballot is processed immediately.
“Effectively identifying and removing ineligible voter registrations” does nothing for the problem of the person who registers and votes on the same day. Benson’s reform does not fix the Gao loophole. But the Posthumus plan does.
Last month, Benson called a press conference to cast the Posthumus plan as dangerous, but had precious little to say about her own.
As Votebeat reports: “She didn’t provide details of her proposal, but said potential changes could include ‘policies that enable us to track and retrieve’ ballots cast by voters who registered the same day as the election.”
Despite Benson having no actual plan, Votebeat gave her the headline: “Michigan secretary of state aims to fix loophole that allowed noncitizen to vote in 2024.”
The story noted that “both Benson and Posthumus are responding to a single known instance of a noncitizen voting in Michigan’s 2024 general election.” That was the media line back then—this was an isolated incident, and we know this because Jocelyn Benson said so.
When Benson reported her oopsie—whoops, found 15 more illegals—Votebeat ran that story too. One sees the egg run down the reporter’s face as they note the “significant increase from previous reports.”
Prior to October, Benson told Congress that non-citizen voting was not a thing. The number was zero. No reforms were needed. Then it was a “single known instance.” Now it’s 16 known instances. And only a scalpel is needed. And we know this because Jocelyn Benson said so.
But Benson’s words and deeds are often in conflict.
When she declared her run for governor, she vowed to someday be “the governor who puts transparency and efficiency at the forefront.”
We’ve heard this promise before. We heard it eight years ago from the current occupant of the governor’s office, Gretchen Whitmer.
In her eight-page 2018 transparency plan, Whitmer said that if the legislature didn’t pass a FOIA law, she would apply it to her office anyway. It never happened. Whitmer’s FOIA flip flop, along with the damned roads, is among her many failures to deliver on campaign promises.
Benson’s $9 million campaign finance and lobbying portal is a flop that has set transparency back a decade.
“Lobbyist registrations no longer list their clients, their expenses can’t be easily viewed, and the only means of downloading state campaign finance data en masse appears broken,” Bridge Michigan reports.
Users say a simple system was made worse after an expensive reform. That reform was carried out by Benson. The Benson effect is anti-transparency at worst and incompetence at absolute best.
Jocelyn Benson’s scalpel is broken. Her tenure has weakened election integrity and welcomed foreigners to the Michigan voting booth.
There is nothing in the Benson track record to suggest she’s earned a promotion.
James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast. Join him in conversation on X @downi75.
