Michigan’s Republican nominee for secretary of state says local election offices are being flooded with questionable voter registration forms ahead of November, forcing clerks to spend time reviewing duplicate submissions and other disputed paperwork in a closely watched battleground state, according to a new report.
Anthony Forlini, the clerk of Macomb County outside Detroit, said more than 5,000 registration cards had arrived in his county, with additional forms still coming. His allegations come as voters prepare to choose a successor to Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is running for governor while remaining the state’s chief election officer. Forlini faces Democratic Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II in the Nov. 3 election.
This is not how things should be run … pic.twitter.com/Y1esjIURQO
— Anthony G. Forlini (@tonyforlini1) September 18, 2026
In a Sept. 18 video captioned “This is not how things should be run,” Forlini described submissions involving people already registered to vote, signatures that he said did not match Michigan’s statewide voter database, and poor-quality paperwork collected by paid registration workers.
“Five thousand came through our county — and they’re still coming in from organizations and groups that are out to make a buck for themselves, for the people that are doing it!” Forlini said. He cited one local clerk’s account of repeated submissions for the same individual: “One of my clerks said, allegedly, there were 47 for one person!”
Forlini said the paperwork is taking election workers away from other preparations for November. His complaint focused on the administrative burden of reviewing the forms, rather than evidence that the submissions had resulted in illegal votes.
“That’s a lot of time suck, guys. It’s a lot of time suck for your local clerks, for the people that are trying to do our elections, trying to make our elections good. They work hard. They work really hard. We need to support them, and we need to understand these registrations to vote and how they’re coming in, and why they’re coming in the way they’re coming in,” he said.
According to Forlini, local clerks have told him that nine out of 10 incoming forms are not legitimate. He did not identify the organizations submitting the cards, and the figures he cited represent his account of what clerks reported, rather than findings from an independently verified audit.
“As Secretary of State, I’m going to try to figure this out. I’m going to try to figure out what is flawed in the law and how we’re registering people, because this isn’t the way the law was designed to be — where anybody can just turn in registrations for anybody, even though the clerks are claiming 9 out of 10 are not legitimate.”
The contest will determine who succeeds Benson in an office responsible for statewide election supervision. Her campaign for governor has separately drawn scrutiny over her simultaneous roles as a candidate and the official leading the department that oversees Michigan’s election system.
Benson’s position does not give her responsibility for personally counting ballots or certifying her own election. Local officials compile results, and the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers certifies statewide contests. Under a policy released in May, Benson is to recuse herself from decisions and administrative tasks directly affecting the governor’s race, with those responsibilities assigned to the state elections director. She remains secretary of state throughout the campaign.
Forlini has pledged to examine the registration process if elected, arguing that local clerks need relief from repeated and defective submissions. His allegations leave separate questions to be resolved: how many forms were deficient, why they were submitted, and whether changes to the collection process would reduce the workload he described.
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