Overview
- Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon sent a letter dated April 14 requesting all 2024 ballots, envelopes, and receipts from Wayne County and warned that noncompliance within 14 days could trigger a court order.
- Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on Sunday denounced the request as baseless and vowed to fight it, releasing the DOJ letter and a formal rebuttal.
- Dhillon cited three voter-fraud convictions from 2020 and a lawsuit later dismissed as not credible to justify the review, while state officials said those isolated cases were already addressed and show no widespread fraud.
- The Justice Department says it is acting under a federal records‑retention law and is seeking about 865,000 ballots, which Michigan argues could burden 43 local clerks who hold the records and risk voter privacy.
- The demand is part of a broader push by the Trump administration that has included FBI seizures of 2020 election records in Georgia and subpoenas in Arizona, lawsuits over voter rolls in 29 states, and multiple recent court setbacks.