DETROIT — The Michigan Court of Appeals rejected Wednesday a lawsuit from Republican businessman Perry Johnson, who asked the judges to revive his campaign for governor by giving him a spot on the August primary ballot.
The unanimous decision from a three-judge panel marked a significant setback for the five GOP candidates for governor who were caught in an alleged wave of fraudulent petition signatures. Last week, the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked on whether the candidates had gathered the 15,000 required valid signatures, denying the five hopefuls spots on the ballot.
Three of the candidates — Johnson, former Detroit police Chief James Craig and financial adviser Michael Markey of Grand Haven — filed legal challenges, arguing the state Bureau of Elections needed to examine each petition signature individually to invalidate them.
The bureau had nixed entire pages of petitions from the allegedly fraudulent circulators and spot checked about 7,000 of 68,000 signatures deemed invalid. But Jonathan Brater, the state's elections director, said officials were confident in their findings.
The unanimous decision by the appeals panel on Wednesday rejected the Republican candidates' argument.
"The board, therefore, had a clear legal duty to investigate, but it did not have a clear legal duty to conduct a comparison of each fraudulent signature against the qualified voter file," according to the ruling. "Likewise, because the board had the discretion to not check each and every signature submitted by the fraudulent-petition circulators, the act Johnson is seeking to compel defendants to perform is not ministerial in nature."
A ministerial act is one in which the law defines the duty to be performed with precision and certainty, according to the court's ruling.
Appeals Court Judges Kirsten Frank Kelly, Michael Kelly and Noah Hood signed onto the decision. Hood is an appointee of Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Kristen Frank Kelly was appointed to the Wayne County Circuit Court by Republican then-Gov. John Engler before winning election to the Court of Appeals. Michael Kelly also ran independently for election to the appeals court.
Johnson, a self-described quality guru, had asked the court to require his name be put on the ballot.
The matter is expected to go to the Michigan Supreme Court.
Craig, whom many viewed as the early front runner in the race for the Republican nomination, filed his challenge to the Board of State Canvassers' decision in the state Court of Claims.
On Friday, Craig told The Detroit News that he's weighing a write-in campaign for the August ballot. Like Johnson, Markey's suit was initiated in the Court of Appeals.
Johnson, who's already spent millions of dollars to boost his campaign for governor, was the first to file in the courts, doing so on Friday a date after the canvassers' meeting.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office has said it wants to resolve who's on and off the primary ballot by Friday. Election officials need ballots to be ready by June 18, 45 days before the Aug. 2 primary.
The appeal court panel's ruling upheld "the ironclad integrity of our electoral process," said Lavora Barnes, chairwoman of the Michigan Democratic Party.
"We’re pleased that justice prevailed today as the Court of Appeals concluded that Perry Johnson, and Perry Johnson alone, bears responsibility for ensuring his nominating petitions weren’t fraudulent and included a sufficient amount of valid signatures — a sentiment shared by several members of his own party," Barnes said.
Johnson submitted 23,193 signatures on April 19.
"Under Michigan law, those signatures are presumed valid unless their invalidity is established by clear, competent and convincing evidence," Johnson's attorneys wrote Friday. "So unless someone can prove in compliance with state law that less than 15,000 of Mr. Johnson’s signatures are valid, the Board of State Canvassers has a clear legal duty to declare the sufficiency of his petitions and the Secretary of State has a clear legal duty to certify his name for the August 2, 2022 ballot."
In reviewing candidates' petition signatures, the Bureau of Elections said it had tracked 36 petition circulators "who submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures" across its review of candidates' filings.
"In total, the bureau estimates that these circulators submitted at least 68,000 invalid signatures submitted across 10 sets of nominating petitions," the bureau's report said.
For now, the alleged forgeries have cut the field of GOP candidates for governor in half from 10 to five.
The remaining five GOP gubernatorial hopefuls include conservative commentator and businesswoman Tudor Dixon of Norton Shores, pastor Ralph Rebandt of Farmington Hills, businessman Kevin Rinke of Bloomfield Township, chiropractor Garrett Soldano of Mattawan and Ottawa County real estate broker Ryan Kelley.
All but Kelley will debate Thursday at the Detroit Regional Chamber's Mackinac Policy Conference.
Kelley is boycotting the debate over the Detroit chamber's COVID-19 vaccination and testing requirements for 1,300 conference attendees.
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