By Jon King, Michigan Advance
As the 2026 gubernatorial race heats up, Michigan Republicans are raising alarms about Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson overseeing elections as she herself runs for governor. This has become a familiar refrain from the partisan Republican playbook: sow doubt, stir fear and hope confusion spreads faster than facts.
Yet the reality on the ground couldn’t be clearer, or more to the point, boringly procedural.
Michigan’s elections are decentralized by design. Municipal clerks run the show, from ballot preparation to vote tabulation. The bureaucratic reality, outlined by longtime election officials like former Michigan Director of Elections Chris Thomas, is that Benson has neither the authority nor the operational role to manipulate outcomes. It’s the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers that handles election certification, not the secretary.
There’s a reason that particular body consists of exactly four members; two Republicans and two Democrats. It requires bipartisan consensus so that no one party official, no matter what their position, can unilaterally dictate an outcome. One need only look at the last attempt to do just that, when President Donald Trump himself brought tremendous pressure to bear to try and prevent certification of Wayne County’s 2020 vote totals, which overwhelmingly favored Joe Biden. And yet, the system held.
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That resilience is no accident. Michigan’s election architecture is designed to distribute authority, create checks, and build redundancy into every step of the process. The safeguards aren’t theoretical; they’ve been tested under pressure and proven effective, time and again, reinforcing the notion that claims of Benson “controlling” the election are partisan theater and not policy reality.
Yet the narrative persists. Candidates like John James and Perry Johnson cast doubt on Benson’s neutrality, while Rep. Rachelle Smit, who chairs the unironically-named House Election Integrity Committee, warns of a “constitutional crisis” over proposed regulatory clarifications. But these clarifications simply codify existing responsibilities, not shift powers toward Benson. This is politics masquerading as concern, and it risks eroding public trust in elections without cause.
History also stands in contrast to the GOP’s fearmongering. Secretaries of state have long campaigned for office while serving in their roles — five have done so since 1955 — without scandal or systemic collapse. Where was the concern when Republican Ruth Johnson ran for Michigan Senate in 2018 while serving as secretary of state? Has anyone, Democrat or Republican, suggested that now-Sen. Ruth Johnson gained her office illegitimately? No, they have not. That’s because she didn’t and neither would Benson.
If anything, these attacks highlight a deeper threat: a willingness among Republican politicians to weaponize ignorance. Misleading claims about election administration aren’t harmless rhetoric. They can set the stage for delegitimizing results and undermining voter confidence. But, then again, that seems to be the point.
Unfortunately, these attacks are not confined to the gubernatorial race, but are being amplified at every level. Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), who is the presumptive GOP nominee for U.S. Senate this November, continues to sow doubt in the election process by repeating unsubstantiated claims of irregularities and fraud. The most notorious of these is the disproven assertion that a van of ballots appeared in Detroit in the early morning after Election Day and influenced his 2024 Senate loss. Worse still, Rogers has suggested that off-duty police officers should be recruited as poll watchers in Detroit, a city in which three-quarters of the population are Black.
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Rogers’ proposal must be viewed in a broader national context of the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Louisiana v. Callais which significantly weakened key protections of the Voting Rights Act, making it more difficult to challenge electoral maps that dilute minority voting strength. Louisiana Republicans have already used the ruling to suspend congressional primary elections so they can redraw districts that are expected to further disenfranchise minority voters. It would be a mistake not to see Rogers’ suggestion as part and parcel of the same effort.
Michigan’s elections have been, and continue to be, robust, fair, and thoroughly managed by trained officials at every level. That has been true under Republican leadership, and it is true under Democrats.
In short, the alarm bells being rung are for show. Benson isn’t “running the election” any more than a quarterback writes the referee’s rulebook. Understanding that distinction matters, not just for voters, but for the integrity of public discourse itself.
Republicans appear to be so eager to attack Benson the candidate that they are willing to fundamentally weaken the election system she oversees. This is akin to setting fire to a house simply because they don’t like who’s currently living in it. They would be wise to remember that Benson is merely a renter of that house and we, the registered voters of Michigan regardless of party, are its owners.
Michigan Advance is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Michigan Advance maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jon King for questions: info@michiganadvance.com.
