Left: Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump listens at a business roundtable discussion at a campaign event at Precision Components Group, Monday, Aug. 19, 2024, in York, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson). Right: Gov. Gretchen Whitmer speaks at the NAACP Detroit branch Fight for Freedom Fund dinner in Detroit, Sunday, May 19, 2024 (AP Photo/Paul Sancya).
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer said the lawsuit filed against her and other state officials by the Donald Trump presidential campaign over her designation of new voter registration agencies (VRAs) for veterans and small business owners should be dismissed because the “claims are without merit.”
Trump’s lawsuit filed last month in the U.S. District Court Western District of Michigan accuses Whitmer of illegally allowing voter registration at places such as the Department of Veterans Affairs and Small Business Administration. Whitmer last year issued an executive directive to designate Saginaw VA Medical Center, the Detroit VA Medical Center and the department’s Detroit regional office as VRAs. She also allowed people to register to vote at the state Department of Health and Human Services and Housing Development Authority, among others.
On Friday, Heather S. Meingast of the Michigan Attorney General’s Office wrote a 35-page response to the lawsuit on behalf of Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Elections Chief Jonathan Brater.
“There is no more venerable group in America than our veterans. And small businesses are the lifeblood of many communities across our nation, including here in Michigan,” she wrote. “It is thus perplexing that Plaintiffs Republican National Committee, Michigan Republican Party, and the campaign for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, oppose Michigan’s efforts to provide voter registration services to veterans and small business owners.”
The plaintiffs, which also include the Republican National Committee, Michigan Republican Party and Georgetown Township Clerk Ryan Kidd, claim only the state legislature, not the governor, can designate VRAs under the National Voter Registration Act.
But Whitmer argues the Trump’s “claims are without merit and must be dismissed for three reasons.” First, the state says since the plaintiffs claim that only state law has been violated, the Eleventh Amendment bars it from being filed in federal court. Second, the plaintiffs “have not alleged an injury in fact that is concrete and particularized under any theory.” Finally, the defendants argue that Michigan Election Law authorizes Whitmer to designate state agencies to perform voter registration services.
Meingast writes how Michigan under then Gov. John Engler was slow to enact the National Voter Registration Act, passed by Congress in 1993, in the first place and it took federal lawsuits by voter rights groups to get the state into compliance. Ultimately the state legislature enacted the NVRA in late 1994. No new VRAs had been enacted until Whitmer’s 2023 executive order.
In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing state and federal agencies to work together to promote increased voter registration and participation. In response, Whitmer said it was time to “review and update” the list of VRAs and she directed Benson to work with Veterans Affairs and the SBA to establish them. Benson’s “negotiation of such agreements was consistent with her responsibility to coordinate the requirements of the NVRA,” Meingast wrote.
Attorneys for Trump say Whitmer’s directive “undermines the integrity of elections by increasing the opportunity for individuals to register to vote even though they are ineligible to do so.” The plaintiffs claim they must “deploy their time and resources to monitor Michigan elections for fraud and abuse.”
“But they provide no factual support for such concerns — they identify no incidents of any fraud or abuse related to registration activities conducted by VRAs. Merely invoking ‘the possibility and potential for voter fraud’ based only on ‘hypotheticals, rather than actual events,’ is insufficient to support an injury,” the Michigan AGs office wrote.
The state uses Trump’s unsuccessful lawsuit filed in a federal court in Pennsylvania, Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., v. Boockvar, that tried to bar voting drop boxes in the 2020 election as an argument against him.
Also on Friday, Trump and co. asked the judge to rule in their favor and issue a declaratory judgement in their favor and that Whitmer, Benson and Brater broke state law and the Veterans Affairs and Small Business Association violated the NVRA.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Maloney has yet to rule on the merits of the case other than saying the progressive Vet Voice Foundation could not intervene in the case. He said he will allow the organization to file briefs as amicus curiae in the case.
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