James Craig sues petition circulators; Perry Johnson meeting with lawyers to file suit
Lansing — Two Republican gubernatorial hopefuls disqualified from the August primary ballot because of a wave of fraudulent petition signatures plan to sue the companies and individual circulators accused of forging thousands of signatures.
Former Detroit police Chief James Craig filed his suit in Kent County Circuit Court Monday and Bloomfield Hills businessman Perry Johnson said he is meeting with lawyers to sue the groups that managed his signature-gathering effort.
Craig and his main petition circulating company, Vanguard Field Strategies, filed suit against In Field Strategies and 18 circulators listed in a Michigan Bureau of Elections report as signature-gatherers suspected of forging signatures. The complaint said the Craig campaign agreed to pay circulators $13 a signature.
Craig told reporters on Tuesday he believes the signature forgeries were performed by petition circulating firms several times removed from Vanguard through subcontracts.
"It appears that this group of folks are the ones that committed the fraud," Craig said. "But also the other equally troubling is how did that group not only do petitions for me but ... circulate petitions for other gubernatorial candidates? How does that happen?
"...I'm optimistic that this lawsuit will open the doors to what really took place," Craig said.
During an interview in downtown Lansing on Tuesday, Perry Johnson said he's moving forward with plans to file lawsuits over his petitions. He met with attorneys on Monday and was scheduled to meet with them again on Tuesday.
Johnson said five petition circulating companies that worked on behalf of his campaign were hired through his consultant John Yob, a longtime figure in Michigan politics.
But Johnson said he had no problem with Yob's performance.
"I would never have had the chance to be where I was without John Yob," Johnson said. "I went in there not having any idea what I'm doing. And I am supposed to be quality guru. If I didn't hire a guy who knew this business, I certainly wouldn't be a quality guru, I'd be an idiot out there trying to reinvent the wheel."
Yob quit Craig's campaign last fall before becoming Johnson's general campaign consultant. Last week, Craig suggested Yob is the "common denominator" in his and Johnson's signature-gathering failures.
Craig announced his lawsuit at the Secretary of State's Office, where he submitted paperwork Tuesday to run as a write-in candidate on the August primary ballot.
"I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's going to be easy," Craig said of his write-in campaign. "It's not. It's an uphill battle."
Craig said fundraising would be a challenge in the coming weeks as his team worked out the best strategy to increase name recognition and instruct voters on how to enter a write-in candidate on the primary ballot, including instructions on the correct spelling of Craig's name.
He also said he would "pare down" his operation, including eliminating some staff, in order to invest in the campaign over the next several weeks.
"Money is the oil that keeps that engine running," Craig said of campaigns.
The Bureau of Elections determined more than 6,000 of Johnson's signatures were believed to be fraudulent and caused Johnson to fall short of the 15,000-signature threshold needed to qualify for the ballot.
The bureau found Craig's campaign had turned in 11,113 invalid signatures, including 9,879 signatures from "fraudulent petition circulators." Only 10,192 of the 21,305 signatures were deemed "facially valid," causing Craig to fall nearly 5,000 signatures short of the minimum.
Johnson's challenge of the bureau's determination and the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked vote keeping him off the August ballot were dismissed by the Michigan Supreme Court and a federal district judge.
On Monday, a federal judge denied Johnson's request to halt the printing of ballots for the primary in a last-ditch effort to get his name on the Aug. 2 ballot.
Craig was denied placement on the ballot by the Michigan Supreme Court, which told him he would have to first appeal in lower courts where other candidates had been unsuccessful.
In his Monday lawsuit, Craig alleged In Field Strategies had promised Vanguard a high validity rate — about 70% — while collecting signatures but "secretly" and "recklessly" subcontracted with a company run by Shawn Wilmoth who "used another man as its 'front'" named Willie Reed.
"That front man served as In Field's 'Michigan manager,' and it was the Wilmoth organization's cadre of circulators who committed the fraud," the complaint said.
The suit alleges breach of contract, breach of warranty and common law fraud and seeks a monetary judgment in favor of the campaign and Vanguard.
Wilmoth, who leads First Choice Contracting, pleaded guilty to two counts of election fraud in 2011, according to a Florida TV station. At least one other candidate disqualified from the Republican gubernatorial primary ballot, Michigan State Police Capt. Michael Brown, said he also used Wilmoth's group to gather signatures.
In Field Strategies was supposed to check the validity of the signatures before delivering them to Vanguard at one of several locations, including one in Kent County, according to Craig's lawsuit.
The company also was banned under contract from collecting for other gubernatorial candidates, the Craig campaign said.
In Field submitted petition pages to Vanguard on a weekly basis with a report on validity it said it determined based on a comparison between the signatures and the Michigan qualified voter file, the Craig campaign lawsuit said.
The company told Vanguard its validity rate was between 75% and 78%, according to the lawsuit.
The group submitted a total of 14,310 signatures for Craig's campaign, of which about 9,879 were fully examined to show they were not valid — leaving Craig's campaign with a 30% validity rate.
eleblanc@detroitnews.com