Michigan's Auditor General Did Not Say Voter Rolls Are "Secure and Accurate," Election Integrity Group Says
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, August 31, 2026
CONTACT:
Melanie Nivelt
Media Relations Liaison
Michigan Fair Elections
248.425.8896
STOCKBRIDGE, Mich. — August 31, 2026 — Michigan Fair Elections Institute (MFEI) says Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office is misrepresenting a new report from the state's Auditor General. MFEI also is calling for a full, legally-compliant audit before the September 15, 2026, deadline.
What happened
State law required Michigan's Auditor General to do a full audit by September 15, 2026, of how Michigan maintains its voter registration rolls, using strict national auditing standards. On August 28, the Auditor General released a report — but Benson's office is calling it proof the rolls are "secure and accurate."
The problem
The law required a full performance audit, done under Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards (Yellow Book standards) — the kind of rigorous audit that would let auditors form and state an opinion on whether the voter rolls are accurate.
What Michigan's Auditor General delivered was not that; it was a narrower "examination of selected procedures." The report itself says the examination is "not intended to provide a full performance audit" and that no opinion is being offered on accuracy. The Auditor General also didn't independently verify the underlying data it used.
What the numbers actually show
● The report checked whether certain data fields were filled in correctly — not whether the people listed are actually eligible to vote. Those are different things.
● One data-matching process only covered about 7.3 million of the state's 8.3 million registered voters, leaving roughly 1 million unchecked.
● The 8.3 million figure is a snapshot from March 2026, not the state's current count (which the Secretary of State's own dashboard puts at about 8.38 million, with hundreds of thousands more marked for future removal).
Findings that undercut the "secure and accurate" claim
● Over 18,500 active registered voters were flagged in state data as possible non-citizens (this is a data flag, not a confirmed count).
● In a small sample the Auditor General checked by hand, more than a third turned out to be confirmed non-citizens — though none had voting records.
● A voter-activity report was off by about 1.28 million.
● Michigan waits 20 years of inactivity before removing someone from the rolls — far longer than the federal minimum standard.
Bottom line
Whether this report was meant to satisfy the legal requirement, it doesn't support the Secretary of State's claim the rolls are secure and accurate.
MFEI is calling for a full, legally-compliant audit before the September 15 deadline.
About Michigan Fair Elections Institute
Michigan Fair Elections Institute is a 501(c)(3) organization focused on election administration accountability and transparency in Michigan.
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