DETROIT — The Michigan Supreme Court on Friday ended the chances of at least three Republican gubernatorial candidates to appear on the August primary ballot, siding with the state Bureau of Elections in ruling a deluge of forged signatures were enough to keep them off the ballot.
The high court majority in Friday orders denied the appeals of businessman Perry Johnson of Bloomfield Hills, financial adviser Michael Markey of Grand Haven and former Detroit police Chief James Craig, arguing in Johnson's case that "there is nothing here meriting our further time or attention."
Johnson's complaint "lacks merit because he cannot show that the Board of State Canvassers had a clear legal duty to certify his name to the ballot," wrote Chief Justice Bridget McCormack.
Justices Brian Zahra and David Viviano concurred with McCormack, but Zahra requested the Legislature move up the deadline for review of petitions by at least six weeks to allow the judicial branch more time to review challenges.
Justice Richard Bernstein dissented, arguing that there should be oral arguments in the case because it "presents significant legal issues worth further consideration."
The justices' statements in the Johnson case were referenced in their decisions on Craig and Markey as well.
Between Wednesday night and Thursday evening, Johnson, Craig, Markey and Donna Brandenburg of Byron Center appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court to overturn lower court rulings and place them on the August primary ballot.
The decision came as the Bureau of Elections was set to send a list of certified candidates to county clerks at 5 p.m. Eastern time Friday.
The Michigan Bureau of Elections on May 23 released reports indicating five candidates for governor hadn't submitted the required 15,000 valid petition signatures needed to appear on the August primary ballot because of a large swatch of the signatures appeared to be forged. Michigan State Police Capt. Michael Brown was the only one of the five candidates not to appeal the decision and, instead, withdrew from the race.
The Bureau of Elections said it believed 36 petition circulators "submitted fraudulent petition sheets consisting entirely of invalid signatures." The bureau said it was "unaware of another election cycle in which this many circulators submitted such a substantial volume of fraudulent petition sheets consisting of invalid signatures."
The Board of State Canvassers deadlocked May 26 on whether the five GOP candidates should be on the ballot. The board's 2-2 votes meant the candidates' petitions could not be certified to appear on the Aug. 2 primary ballot.
Republican candidates challenging the decision have argued that the bureau should have examined each and every signature for validity instead of relying on a spot check of about 7,000 of the 68,000 alleged forgeries.
Lower courts so far have ruled the bureau had a duty to investigate the signatures but not to compare each one with signatures in Michigan's qualified voter file.
The remaining five candidates for governor who secured the needed signatures to appear on the August primary ballot are pastor Ralph Rebandt of Farmington Hills, chiropractor Garrett Soldano of Mattawan, businessman Kevin Rinke of Bloomfield Township, real estate broker Ryan Kelley of Allendale and conservative commentator and businesswoman Tudor Dixon of Norton Shores.
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