The race for the Democratic nomination for Michigan’s soon-to-be-open U.S. Senate seat is now officially down to just two candidates after the Michigan Board of State Canvassers on Friday formally rejected the petitions of Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun.

The decision leaves actor Hill Harper and U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Holly) to battle each other for the opportunity to succeed U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Lansing) who is retiring.

The board, made up of two Democrats and two Republicans, accepted a staff report issued last week that said Beydoun improperly used a post office box on all 2,924 petition sheets, which require a street address. Thus, staff invalidated all of his sample signatures and said he was ineligible for the ballot.

Beydoun argued to the board that while the petition forms supplied by the Secretary of State made clear a P.O. Box could not be used by those who circulate or sign the petition, but it doesn’t specify that the header of the petition itself cannot have a post office box in it. 

“For you to remove us from the ballot because of an issue on an address that has no material bearing whatsoever on the outcome of the petitions, I find that unjust and does not support democracy and allowing the citizens of the State of Michigan to choose when the primary comes on August 6th,” said Beydoun.

Michigan Elections Director Jonathan Brater pointed out that state law requires a residential address, which has been supported in past court decisions. 

“Just to clarify, it’s not us putting it on the form. This is in the Michigan election law,” Brater said. “This is the language that the Michigan Legislature requires us to put on the form, and that that language, street address, has been interpreted by a court to mean not a P.O. Box. So, it’s not a definition that we’re providing. It’s a definition that’s in the law that we are obligated to follow.”

Several board members also expressed regret for Beydoun’s circumstance, but said their duty was to follow the law, and unanimously rejected his petitions.

A separate challenge against Slotkin made by the Harper campaign was rejected, with her petitions approved.

Meanwhile, the board rejected a request by Democrats to investigate claims of “apparent fraud” in GOP Senate petitions, noting the requests by the Michigan Democratic Party and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee were filed past the challenge deadline and did not sufficiently refute the petition sampling procedure used by the Board of Elections staff. 

Republican board member Tony Daunt questioned Brater about that process.

“I think it’s clear that the fraud has been happening across the board,” said Daunt. “With random sampling, how confident are we that random sampling is able to catch the fraud that’s in these petitions?”

“100% confident,” responded Brater, who noted that while third-party claims about the U.S. Senate petitions were “completely irrelevant” to their determination of whether they have 15,000 valid signatures, that doesn’t mean the issues aren’t being looked at.

“We’re reviewing these letters, and as we did two years ago, we’ll refer anything suspicious for law enforcement investigation, but it has no impact on our projection of validity of these candidates,” said Brater, referencing an 2022 incident of a signature fraud scandal that  resulted in five Republican gubernatorial candidates in Michigan being kicked off the August 2022 primary ballot. 

This year, questions about fraudulent signatures have resulted in derailing the candidacy of former Democratic state Sen. Adam Hollier of Detroit, whose candidacy for the 13th Congressional District was challenged by incumbent U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-Detroit). 

The canvassers’ decision to reject the Democrats request cleared four GOP candidates to be on the ballot: former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers (R-White Lake), former U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (I-Cascade Twp.), businessman Sandy Pensler and physician Sherry O’Donnell.

Congressional candidate challenges

The board also heard from representatives of 10 Congressional campaigns that had challenges lodged against their nominating petitions.

Former state Sen. Curtis Hertel (D-East Lansing) had his candidate petitions for the 7th Congressional District challenged for not correctly listing the office he is seeking. Because Hertel wrote “U.S. Congress” instead of the U.S. House, former canvassers board member Norm Shinkle, a Republican, filed to have Hertel disqualified. 

Shinkle recalled past instances that the board rejected petitions for what were seemingly minor errors, but still in violation of the law.

“Everything we’ve done today is under the notion of strict compliance,” said Shinkle. “We got rid of a fake Tea Party because they didn’t use the word ‘the’ correctly. That was strict compliance. And strict compliance should be used today. This petition should be disallowed.”

Board Vice Chair Richard Houskamp, a Republican, pointed out that when Shinkle was on the board in 2022, he voted to approve a number of petitions for Congress, including U.S. Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Bruce Twp.) who listed “U.S. Congress.” When Shinkle said that was because those weren’t challenged, Houskamp was skeptical.

“Even though they weren’t challenged, they were no issue for you,” he replied.

Brater agreed.

“In this case, with all due respect to our esteemed former board member, we did not find that Congress was inappropriate here. It is clear what office is being referred to,” he said.

The board agreed and unanimously approved Hertel’s petitions. He is now the lone Democrat seeking the nomination, and is expected to face off against former state Sen. Tom Barrett (R-Charlotte) for the 7th Congressional District seat being left open by Slotkin due to her Senate run.

For 8th District Republican candidate Nikki Snyder, who currently serves on the State Board of Education, the board unanimously accepted the staff recommendation that she lacked the required valid petition signatures for a variety of reasons, including invalid dates by the signer, the signers submitted signatures for other candidates, were not registered at the address they indicated on the petition, or had illegible signatures.

Snyder had joined the 8th District field late, dropping out of the race for U.S. Senate on March 22 to seek the GOP nomination. Other Republicans running are Paul Junge, who lost to Kildee in the 2022 election; former Dow Chemical executive Mary Draves; and trucking company owner Anthony Hudson.

Democrats in the race are Board of Education President Pamela Pugh, state Sen. Kristen McDonald Rivet (D-Bay City) and former Flint Mayor and Obama administration appointee Matt Collier.

In the 12th District, three candidate petitions were determined to have insufficient valid signatures, including that of Democrat Ryan Foster, the only challenger for the nomination faced by incumbent U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Detroit). 

Foster pleaded his case, noting he didn’t pay for circulators to gather his signatures, which he turned in March 17, but wasn’t challenged by Tlaib’s campaign until May 2nd.

“I did this myself in two months in the snow, in the rain, walking around,” said Foster. “I did everything the right way. In America, this system is falling apart because the only time you can run for a race is if you have money, or you have name recognition, or you are the right color. I did everything right. And then I have some incumbent with a lot of money to pay somebody to challenge my signatures? It makes me very upset’’

When told that a representative from the Tlaib campaign was present via Zoom, Foster addressed him directly.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself, that you’ve helped a candidate that got people chanting ‘Death to America’ to get another person that loves America off the ballot,” said Foster as he gathered his papers and left.

The reference was to an April rally in Dearborn in which the chant arose from the crowd, a video of which went viral, and was denounced later by Dearborn’s mayor and other leaders. Tlaib was not present at the rally. 

Tlaib will now run unopposed for the Democratic nomination. The board also voted that insufficient valid petition signatures were turned in by two Republican candidates for the 12th District: Steven Elliott and Hassan Nehme, leaving two Republicans in the race for the GOP nomination: James Hooper and Linda Sawyer.

In the 1st District, the board unanimously accepted the staff report that Republican candidate JD Wilson had insufficient signatures because he did not use petition forms that met state election law requirements including improper formatting and language errors.

Fellow GOP candidate Josh Saul, however, proved to be a more difficult decision. All of his 1,221 signatures were recommended to be invalidated because each of the petition sheets stated the title of the office as “House of Representatives,” and the district line as “1st,” potentially confusing signers that he was running for state House.

But in discussion, Saul argued no one could reasonably conclude he was running for anything other than for the U.S. House as the two districts don’t overlap, which seemed to have an impact on board members. Brater then offered to have staff review the petitions, which several hours later produced a result that put Saul over the top for required valid signatures. The board then voted unanimously to reject the original staff report and approve Saul’s inclusion on the primary ballot, where he will run against Incumbent U.S. Rep. Jack Bergman (R-Watersmeet) for the GOP nomination. Two Democrats, Callie Barr and Bob Lorinser, will battle it out to take on the winner in November.

And finally, in the 10th District, the board concurred with staff recommendations that two Democrats were found to have insufficient valid signatures: Anil Kumar, a member of the Wayne State Board of Governors, and Rhonda Powell. 

Staff found “clear indications of fraud” on at least 47 of Kumar’s petition sheets. As they did with Saul, they tabled a vote to allow elections staff time to do a review. However, that second look failed to provide enough valid signatures and the board voted to accept the staff recommendation and invalidate his petitions, as they did for Powell, who rejected as immaterial her claim that a supplemental submission turned in by consultant Londell Thomas gave her enough signatures, especially since elections staff said there was no record of such a submission.

Thomas was also at the center of the petition scandal that disqualified Hollier, who admitted the signatures Thomas turned in on his behalf appeared to have been forged. 

Thomas’ name is one of 22 listed by bureau staff as circulating petition sheets with “clear indications of fraud,” all of which are being referred for further investigation. 

Other Democrats running in the 10th District are Emily Busch, Carl Marlinga, Tiffany Tilley and Diane Young. They all seek to replace the incumbent, U.S. Rep. John James (R-Shelby Twp.), who is running unopposed for the GOP nomination.