Benson’s Bureau of Elections Doesn’t Know the Filing Deadline?

Lansing, MI – Yesterday, Michigan Democrat Party Chair Curtis Hertel filed a complaint against Eaton County Prosecutor Doug Lloyd, the Republican nominee for Attorney General, for filing a late campaign disclosure. The problem? Lloyd’s team was told the deadline by Michigan Secretary of State of Jocelyn Benson’s Bureau of Elections (BOE), in writing, and the BOE gave the wrong date.

In an email provided by Lloyd’s campaign, officials for the BOE explicitly told Lloyd’s team that the deadline was August 16th. When the BOE later updated the website to show that the deadline was, in fact, the 11th, Benson’s department did not communicate that to the Lloyd campaign.

Sadly, this is yet another in an embarrassing series of errors from Benson’s State Department. Last year, Benson rolled out a new campaign finance transparency portal that she spent $9 million of taxpayer money on, but the website did not work. In fact, the failure was so egregious that Benson’s State Department was stripped of its IT control later that year in the bipartisan FY 2025-2026 budget.

To make matters worse for Benson, Attorney General Dana Nessel filed charges against non-citizens voting in Michigan’s elections yesterday – something Benson has often refused to admit is a problem:

Even after all the waste and mistakes from Benson’s department, she still has the audacity to ask for even more taxpayer money. In an interview last year, Benson made it clear that she wanted to revolutionize the tax code, even though she did not know the current tax rate:

“Jocelyn Benson’s tenure as SOS has been an unmitigated disaster,” said Gabe Butzke, a spokesperson for Michigan Forward Network. “After breaking the campaign finance website, allowing noncitizens to vote, and now giving incorrect information to candidates for statewide office, Benson still has the gall to ask for more power and more taxpayer money.”