DETROIT (AP) – Business owner Perry Johnson filed a lawsuit Friday to try to get into Michigan’s August primaries, the first of many likely legal challenges after five Republican candidates were barred for governor over a lack of valid petition signatures.
Johnson asked the state appeals court to intervene and order the Board of State Canvassers to put him on the ballot. James Craig, a well-known former Detroit police chief, also plans to go to court.
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The winner of the August 2 primaries will face Democratic administration Gretchen Whitmer in November.
The state election bureau said their petitions were full of fraudulent names and signatures created by paid circulators, pushing Johnson and Craig below the 15,000 signature threshold needed to run in the primary.
But Johnson’s legal team said the state had erroneously read through entire pages, ruling out the possibility that some voters’ signatures were valid and would have had to inspect each petition line by line.
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“They failed to prove the invalidity of sufficient signatures of Mr Johnson with clear, competent and convincing evidence,” the lawsuit said.
The Board of State Canvassers, made up of two Republicans and two Democrats, held a 2-2 vote Thursday on whether or not to block Johnson, Craig and three others. The tie means they stay out of the vote; one has already fallen off.
There seems to be no doubt that there were fraudulent signatures on the petitions, although there is no evidence that the candidates were aware of this.
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