One day after getting disqualified from the governor’s race, Oakland County entrepreneur and self-described “quality guru” Perry Johnson has filed a lawsuit in the Michigan Court of Appeals.
Johnson is asking the court to compel the Michigan Board of State Canvassers to certify him as a candidate for the Aug. 2 primary ballot.
He is one of five Republican governor candidates disqualified due to not having at least 15,000 valid signatures from registered voters – the others being retired Detroit Police Chief James Craig, Grand Haven financial adviser Michael Markey Jr., Byron Center businesswoman Donna Brandenburg and Stevensville Michigan State Police Captain Mike Brown.
Brown has withdrawn from the race, while the other four have indicated they plan to fight the ruling.
Johnson is asking for expedited consideration by June 1, since the state needs to know who is on the ballot by June 3 so it can start printing and proofreading absentee ballots – which start going out June 18.
The Court of Appeals granted Johnson’s motion for immediate consideration on Friday. The state has until Tuesday to file a response to the court.
The state’s review found 36 petition circulators forged an estimated 68,000 signatures for 10 different candidates in multiple races. All five Republicans kicked off the governor’s ballot were victim to this scheme, but did not catch the fraud before turning in their signatures.
While the state inspected every signature, it only compared 7,000 of these 68,000 thought to be fraudulent against the state’s Qualified Voter File, which has images of all registered voters’ signatures. The Bureau of Elections did not find any that matched among those, and therefore tossed all other signatures from the 36 circulators suspected of fraud.
Johnson’s team called it a “shotgun approach” in its 336-page complaint to the Court of Appeals on Friday.
In the lawsuit, Johnson’s attorneys named one voter, among the disqualified signatures, who confirms the signature on the petition was actually hers.
Johnson just needs 1,200 more valid signatures to qualify – he was closer to the 15,000 mark than the other four. And finding a good signature that was deemed bad means there could be more, the lawsuit claims.
“How many more? We don’t know. Neither does the Bureau or the other defendants,” the complaint says. “Without a signature-by-signature comparison of the petition signatures with the (Qualified Voter File), no one will ever know.”
MCL 168.544c says the invalidity of one signature does not mean others should automatically be rejected – except in the case of “obviously fraudulent signatures” from someone who signed a petition with a name other than theirs or someone who made a false statement in a certificate on a petition.
Johnson committed $2.5 million of his own money toward the governor’s race, including airing an ad during the Super Bowl to kick off his campaign. He’s been polling near the top, but well below Craig.
More lawsuits could be coming from other candidates. Craig’s team said he will be filing “an immediate appeal,” and Markey is reportedly filing his appeal on Tuesday, May 31.
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