DETROIT (WXYZ) — 7 Action News reached out to the five candidates for governor that the Michigan Bureau of Elections says do not have 15,000 valid signatures required to move forward. They each are responding in their own unique way to this unprecedented “fraud.”
James Craig did not answer calls, but sent out a statement this afternoon, calling for an investigation.
The former top cop in Detroit, who was the Republican front runner in the race for governor, says he fell victim to criminals. He is calling on Democratic Attorney General Dana Nessel to investigate.
“At the Bureau of Elections, they say they have never seen fraud at this level before,” said Nessel, agreeing there is something to be investigated.
She says elections officials will investigate first with Michigan State Police, and then if necessary send the investigation to her office. She says she expects that to happen.
She says it is not clear who is responsible for the apparently fraudulent signatures. She says two questions are: should candidates have known and, potentially, did they know?
“If you are running for a statewide office for something as important as the Office of Governor, I do think it is incumbent on that candidate to make some level of inquiry as to whether the signatures they are submitting are fraudulent or not,” said Nessel.
Nessel says it may be that petition circulators committed fraud that disqualified 5 candidates to make money. Private companies that both Republicans and Democrats hire provide such a service, sometimes paying $20 a signature.
“We need stricter laws in place. I personally believe you should never be paying per signature because it lends itself to fraud,” said Nessel.
Related:
- Petition scandal raises questions about company with ties to election fraud
- Petitioner, political consultant weigh in on fraudulent signature debacle
- Michigan's Attorney General says she expects to investigate petition fraud
A report from the Bureau of Elections on the petitions turned in by former GOP Candidate for Governor Front Runner James Craig’s campaign says he turned in 21,305 signatures, but more than half appeared invalid or even fraudulent. The report shows - at times quote, “fraudulent-petition circulators made little effort to vary handwriting.”
Craig did not answer the phone but had updated his voice mail in response to the news.
The Michigan Bureau of Elections says candidate Donna Brandenburg turned in 17,778 signatures but 11,144 are invalid or fraudulent. She did not respond yet to requests for comment.
It found Perry Johnson, who campaigned as a “quality guru” had petitions lacking quality, with 9,393 invalid signatures. On some suspicious pages, every person put the county down in the column calling for the city or township.
He responded on social media calling for reform to protect candidates from fraud.
Of the 21,804 signatures submitted by Michael Markey, a staggering 17,374 are deemed invalid signatures. An example of a fraudulent-petition sheet from Mr. Markey’s drive showed all ten signatures did not match the Qualified Voter File.
“My apologies to the people that supported the campaign, but I had to make a decisive decision about what I was doing. I am not going to be a party to any fraud in any election, so I made the decision to exit the race,” said Michael Brown.
Michigan State Police Captain Michael Brown announced he is exiting the race due to the 13,809 invalid signatures out of 20,900 collected. He says he does not believe this was the act of a political opponent.
Brown said the fraud was motivated by greed, not partisanship.
“I don’t think another campaign influenced them. I just think there was a money grab, cutting corners. Some campaigns were paying $15 to $20 a signature that last month. I never paid close to that for those signatures,” said Brown.
