Administration Demands Detroit Turn Over All 2024 Ballots

The Justice Department is pressing officials in the Detroit area to turn over every ballot cast in the 2024 election, a move Michigan Democrats say is an unfounded federal intrusion into their voting system. In a letter sent Tuesday and released Sunday by state officials, Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon called on the Wayne County clerk to provide 2024 ballots, ballot envelopes, and receipts, the Washington Post reports. She wrote that the jurisdiction, which is a Democratic stronghold in a battleground state, has a "history of fraud convictions and other allegations." Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel responded in a statement that the request "is as absurd as it is baseless," per CBS News.

Dhillon, who runs the Civil Rights Division, wrote that the department wants to review whether election laws were followed, citing a few 2020 voter fraud cases and a dismissed lawsuit over absentee ballots—none of which, per the Detroit News, was from the 2024 election. The DOJ also wants the state's list of registered voters. Michigan officials called the request an attempt by the Trump administration to cast doubt on elections ahead of the November midterms, per the Post. "If this administration wants to bring this circus to our state, my office is prepared to protect the people's right to vote," Nessel said. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, called the move a "poorly disguised attempt" to fuel skepticism and misinformation.

Nessel said in a separate letter that the Justice Department is seeking about 865,000 ballots and hundreds of thousands of related documents, but that Dhillon directed her demand to the wrong office: The ballots are held by 43 municipal clerks, not the Wayne County clerk. Dhillon gave officials two weeks to comply and warned that DOJ may file a lawsuit if they do not. The demand is an escalation of the Trump administration's national campaign to investigate the nation's voting system, which has included seizing 2020 ballots in Georgia. Michigan Democratic Party held its convention in Detroit on Sunday; state voters will elect a new governor and US senator in November.