When Clerks Resign, Laws Go Out the Window, and Chaos Ensues
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By Kristine Christlieb, MFEI News & Commentary Editor
July 31, 2026
Early voting has kicked off, the August 4 primary is looming, but Genesee County’s Argentine Township doesn't have a clerk to run the election. Instead, it has a state-appointed “election coordinator” brought in when the elected township board couldn’t agree on a replacement.
According to Dave Bondy’s Keep It Real Newsletter, Clerk Gwynne James resigned June 29, citing family matters and unconfirmed allegation of a hostile work environment. Her resignation as clerk also left the five-member Argentine Township Board of Trustees short one member. The remaining four members were never able to break a 2-2 stalemate on every attempt to appoint James’ successor.
Township Treasurer Norm Schmidt claimed a deputy clerk couldn't step in either; under Michigan law MCL.41.69, the deputy's authority lapses along with the clerk's.
And the clock was ticking. By statute, MCL 168.370, governing bodies have 45 days to replace the clerk position. But what happens when a clerk resigns or falls ill just a few days before a scheduled election but within the 45-day window?
Flint ABC affiliate News12 did not directly quote Genesee County Clerk Domonique Clemons but reported he said “the state” had to intervene in order to have someone oversee election proceedings in Argentine Township leading up to the August 4 primary.
“While it’s not clear exactly what Clemons meant or if his statement was reported correctly, we’ve seen evidence the Secretary of State’s office is trending toward more centralization,” said Michigan Fair Elections Founder and Chair Patrice Johnson in a written statement. “If the state did intervene in this instance, even as a stopgap, that’s troubling because decentralization is a natural barrier to widespread election fraud.”
Coverage of the Argentine intervention has not specified whether the decision came from the Genesee County Clerk's office, which does have statutory authority under MCL 168.370 to call a special election when townships fail to fill a vacancy, or from the Secretary of State's Bureau of Elections, invoking its broader supervisory role over local election administration. When local government breaks down, it's not always clear afterward who has the authority to fix the deadlock.
In a telephone interview, former Adams Township clerk Stephanie Scott said it’s not just that the state may have stepped in; she believes state officials broke the law by not appointing a person from Argentine Township. More on that to come.
Not an isolated case
Argentine is the most recent example, but it isn't unique. In Hillsdale County, two townships ran into variations on that theme.
Fayette Township has been without a clerk since Jessica Bradley resigned in January. The 45-day replacement window came and went with no appointment. When a special election was called to fill the position, no one, from either party, chose to run. A neighboring city clerk was tapped to run Fayette's spring elections (with two school millage questions on the ballot) in the meantime.
That interim arrangement has since become the subject of formal complaints from Stephanie Scott who filed two election-law complaints with the Hillsdale County Sheriff's Department. In her complaints, she alleges the May 5 special election in Fayette Township was conducted unlawfully.
Scott's complaints center on MCL 168.373, which requires anyone standing in for an absent township clerk to be "some qualified person who is a registered elector of the township," meaning, a registered voter who has lived there at least 30 days. Litchfield City Clerk Cassidy Taylor, who conducted Fayette's May 5 election could not a Fayette Township resident while serving as clerk in Litchfield.
Scott also names Hillsdale County Clerk Abe Dane, alleging he personally performed clerk-level election functions in five Adams Township elections between 2021–2023, when Dane was not an elector in Adams Township and when he was serving as chief deputy under then-Clerk Marney Kast.
Moscow Township, also in Hillsdale County, also lost its clerk but under different circumstances. The clerk suffered a debilitating health condition just prior to upcoming August 4 election and submitted a resignation effective July 31 so Dane's office stepped in directly to keep the election on track.
The authority question
The deeper concern isn't the vacancies themselves, it’s how the vacancies get filled.
Two other cases illustrate how far the state’s authority can go. They involve the state Bureau of Elections asserting authority over sitting clerks it judged noncompliant.
In October 2024, Director of Elections Jonathan Brater removed two Upper Peninsula officials — Rock River Township Clerk Tom Schierkolk and Deputy Clerk David LaMere — from their election duties when they announced plans to hand-count ballots. Brater's letter warned that noncompliance was a criminal misdemeanor. Schierkolk publicly challenged Brater's authority to remove him.
The more consequential precedent is Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott, also in Hillsdale County. In October 2021, Brater relieved Scott of her election duties when she refused to turn over her township's voting tabulator for maintenance, citing state and federal requirements to preserve 2020 election records. But removing her wasn’t enough. In 2025, Attorney General Dana Nessel charged Scott with four felonies carrying up to 20 years, plus a misdemeanor.
On April 30, 2026, Hillsdale Circuit Court Judge Sara Lisznyai dismissed all four felony counts, ruling the lower court had made "an error of law.”
Two gaps, one pattern
Argentine, Fayette, and Moscow are vacancy cases: nobody had clear authority to act quickly when circumstances became urgent.
Rock River and Adams Township are authority cases: the state Bureau of Elections asserting a degree of control over sitting clerks that, in Scott's case, a court ultimately found exceeded its statutory basis.
The end result is communities left feeling uneasy about who is running the election and what statutes are going to be enforced.
