Voters Appealing Against Dismissal of Case Alleging Michigan Secretary of State Violated Constitutional Rights

A years-long legal battle alleging dereliction of duty on the part of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has moved to the Michigan Court of Appeals.

In the early fall of 2020, four Michigan voters said they had discovered that some local election officials were allegedly using millions of dollars of private donations from the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) to pay for what they call “get-out-the-vote efforts” in urban Democrat strongholds around the state.

CTCL is a non-profit organization heavily funded by the Mark Zuckerburg family.

A 2021 report by Capital Research, a conservative think tank that studies non-profits, found that Michigan communities accepted $7.4 million from CTCL in 2020 to help the localities conduct safe and healthy elections during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The grants also encouraged voter registration drives, mail-in voting, and the use of absentee ballot drop boxes.

Data from the study shows that 92.8 percent of the funding went to 11 Michigan cities that heavily favored Democrat candidate Joe Biden.

A sign pointing in the direction of a ballot drop box at the Schmidt Community Center polling station in Lansing, Mich., on Nov. 3, 2020. (Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images)

In September 2020, with legal assistance from the Thomas More Society, the four voters asked the Michigan Court of Claims to immediately stop the practice.

On Oct. 16, 2020, their emergency motion for declaratory relief was denied.

Court of Claims judge, Christopher Murray, told the four voters that the court would do nothing that might interfere with the Nov. 3 general election that was close at hand.

However, Murray found the allegations warranted further discovery and litigation and deferred their claims for “post-election consideration.”

After the election, the voters sued Benson for allegedly violating their constitutional rights by failing to conduct the election according

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