New Report: Michigan Republicans Couldn’t Overturn 2020, So They’re Trying to Decide Who Gets to Vote in 2026

Today, Try And Stop Us released a new report, first published by the Detroit Metro Times, laying out Michigan Republicans’ six-year campaign to undo an election they lost and change who gets to vote. In April, House Republicans passed a party-line bill requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register, creating a class of “federal-only” voters barred from state and local races. It now sits one Senate majority and one governor’s signature from becoming law.

Michigan Republicans have been at this since November 2020. The two Republicans on Wayne County’s canvassing board deadlocked certification of the county that includes Detroit, reversed course, then took calls from Trump and the RNC chair and signed affidavits trying to rescind their votes. Weeks later, 16 Republicans signed fake elector certificates in their party’s basement. In June 2021, the Republican-led Senate Oversight Committee found no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud.

They pushed restrictions anyway. When the governor vetoed a bill ending Michigan’s affidavit option for voters without photo ID, Republicans launched a petition drive to route it around her, then discarded roughly 30,000 signatures that appeared forged. Michigan voters answered in 2022, approving Proposal 2 by nearly 20 points to write voting rights into the state constitution.

Republicans came back for more. Their proof-of-citizenship constitutional amendment drew 58 of the 74 House votes it needed, and an allied petition drive came up three signatures short in a state sample of 1,000. They handed the House elections committee to a lawmaker who says 2020 was stolen. And they are doing it all over a problem that doesn’t exists: the state’s review of 2024 found 15 potential noncitizen ballots out of more than 5.7 million cast.

Michigan Republicans keep losing fair fights, so they keep trying to change who gets to vote.

A full copy of the report can be found here.