Judge Rules Against Crooked MI Sec of State Jocelyn Benson ONE Day Before Election…She Cannot Force Clerks to DELETE Election Files In Violation of Fed Law!
Michigan’s least transparent Secretary of State just took another court loss. A Michigan Court of Claims judge has permanently struck down Rule R 168.48, the Benson-issued requirement that forced local clerks to delete electronic poll book software and all associated files within seven days after an election is certified. The rule is invalid. Statewide. Starting now.
The decision comes in the case brought by Bridgewater Township Clerk Michelle McQueer. Federal law (52 U.S.C. § 20701) requires election officers to retain and preserve all records relating to voting in federal elections for 22 months. Willful destruction is a federal crime. Benson’s rule ordered the opposite: erase the electronic poll book files after seven days. McQueer asked which law controlled. She waited. She asked again. She got silence. So she sued.
This is the same case The Gateway Pundit first reported in August, when attorney Kevin Kijewski filed the verified complaint on McQueer’s behalf. The electronic poll books contain activity logs, timestamps, ballot transactions, and operator actions that are not fully captured in printed reports or the Qualified Voter File. Once deleted, that information is gone. McQueer argued the seven-day deletion rule collided with the federal 22-month retention requirement and put clerks at risk of criminal charges.
The Court of Claims denied the state’s motion to dismiss. The RNC and Michigan Republican Party later joined as intervening plaintiffs. McQueer secured a temporary restraining order protecting her August 4 electronic poll book file. She is the only Michigan clerk known to still possess one. Every other clerk’s August file is already gone.
In October, the U.S. Department of Justice took the rare step of filing a Statement of Interest in the state trial court. DOJ told the judge that electronic poll book data—including all metadata—are federal election records and that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is responsible for preserving them. Statements of Interest from the Justice Department in pure state-court cases are uncommon.
It is rarer still for DOJ to appear at the trial-court level rather than on appeal. Kijewski noted at the time that the government’s statement was written from the Secretary’s earlier position. The day before it was filed, the Secretary’s own data manager, Rachel Clone, swore in an affidavit that the list of voters each precinct used on Election Day is never copied into the state database because it would be “duplicative.” After the election, the state updates its file.
The original list poll workers saw is gone and can only be reconstructed later from a change log. McQueer’s reply was direct: a record that must be rebuilt after the fact has not been retained. A receipt that something was uploaded is not preservation. Reconstruction is not retention.
Benson’s office did not accept the temporary order. With an election weeks away, she filed an emergency application in the Court of Appeals seeking to undo the judge’s TRO and allow the files to be destroyed while the case was still pending. The application, in Kijewski’s words, “asks leave to destroy the evidence while the court decides whether destroying it is lawful.” She did not first ask the trial judge for a stay.