The Thing That Never Happens in Michigan Keeps Happening: Noncitizen Voting
New charges spotlight gubernatorial candidate Jocelyn Benson's lack of work on election integrity.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged five noncitizens with voting in the 2024 election and one citizen who registered her spouse to vote, knowing he is not a citizen, late last week.
For fellow Democrat Jocelyn Benson, secretary of state and running for governor, the timing could not be worse.
Ms. Nessel made the announcement Thursday, days after the August 4 primaries and with plenty of lead time before the November 3 general election.
Ms. Benson’s case for a promotion to governor is that she is an experienced and skilled administrator. These charges contradict that. Catching noncitizens after they voted — and their votes counted — is not the work of a secretary of state. Putting up roadblocks to noncitizens ever registering and voting is that work. And Ms. Benson has refused.
Going into the 2024 election, when she testified to Congress and to Michigan lawmakers, Ms. Benson minimized the possibility of noncitizen voting. She treated it as akin to a myth.
Then University of Michigan student and Chinese national Haoxiang Gao voted in October 2024 — during the early-voting period — and his vote counted.
Ms. Benson consequently did a partial postelection review and found 15 other noncitizen voters. Knowing that at least 16 noncitizens voted in 2024, what did Ms. Benson do to keep this from happening again?
Nothing. Not one policy changed or was recommended to lawmakers that would have kept Mr. Gao out of the voting booth. That he fled to China on January 19, 2025, the day before President Trump was inaugurated for his second term, made matters worse. Michigan’s laws had been broken, and the lawbreaker was able to avoid comeuppance.
Now there are five more Haoxiang Gaos charged. And election integrity is a headline issue once again, a little more than a month before absentee ballots go out.
“Throughout 2025, the Michigan Department of State referred to the Department of Attorney General 16 cases of suspected non-citizen voting in the 2024 November general election,” Ms. Nessel’s office said. “In 2026, an additional 22 cases have been referred to the Michigan Department of Attorney General concerning suspected non-citizen voting or adjacent conduct in elections spanning from 2009 to 2025. Six cases have resulted in criminal charges, ten have been closed without charges, and 22 remain under review.”
This means more election-integrity litigation could be coming — litigation that would give more reasons to doubt the stories Jocelyn Benson tells about herself.
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