Trump Campaign v. Benson I

The Trump Campaign ("Trump") filed this lawsuit alleging three major problems. 1. They claimed that the people counting absent voter ballots were not complying with the law that reads, "At all times, at least 1 election inspector from each major political party must be present at the absent voter counting place." 2. They claimed that party representatives had a legal right to observe the security camera footage of ballot drop boxes, to look for suspicious behavior. 3. They claim that some dates on absentee ballots were being changed to make it appear as though they arrived before election day when they had actually arrived later.

Therefore, Trump sued the Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson, as the government official who oversees elections across the state of Michigan. The case was filed in the Michigan Court of Claims, a state court specifically for lawsuits against the state government. Trump called for an emergency injunction to stop all counting of votes until party's election inspectors were present and for ballots from drop boxes to be set separated from other ballots until the trial concluded.

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) requested to join the lawsuit, and said that the lawsuit should be dropped. They argued that there was no evidence that Republican election observers were being kept out of any place where votes were being counted, that there was no right for election inspectors to oversee things that happened before the vote counting began (like security tapes of ballot drop boxes), and that these voting locations are run by the local governments in their area so there was nothing the defendant, as a member of the state government, was authorized to do about it.

Trump did provide two exhibits: 1. an affidavit of one Jessica Connarn, a poll watcher, and 2. a photograph of a yellow Post-It note containing the text "entered receive date as 11/2/20 on 11/4/20." Connarn, in her affidavit, told a story of a co-worker at the polls complaining to her that they were making her (the friend) illegally change dates of absentee ballots to make ballots that were received too late appear to be valid. The Post-It was allegedly handed to Connarn by the same co-worker later, attesting to a specific change.

Judge Cynthia Stephens for the court rejected the DNC's petition to join the lawsuit, and rejected Trump's emergency motion to stop counting votes or separate the drop box ballots from the rest, saying "allegations regarding the purported conduct of an unknown local election official do not lend themselves to the issuance of a remedy against the Secretary of State," "The plaintiffs have not cited any statutory authority that requires any video to be subject to review by election challengers," and that the counting couldn't be stopped anyway because "the counting is now complete." Trump's exhibits were not accepted as evidence because of the hearsay rule; even the witness that provided the evidence, Jessica Connarn, had not actually seen any misconduct for herself, but had only heard about it from someone else. There are exceptions to the hearsay rule, but Trump hadn't claimed that this fit into any exception and Judge Stephens ruled that it didn't.

The entire lawsuit to this point took three days.

Trump appealed the emergency motion to stop the count to a three-judge panel of the Michigan Court of Appeals (COA), and included additional affidavits from the Wayne County Board of Commissioners attesting to their misgivings about the election results. But 1) they, too, hadn't personally witnessed any misconduct, and 2) Trump lawyer Mark "Thor" Hearne made errors in the application. The court reached out to him by text message and by letter to make corrections, but it was three weeks until Hearne corrected the application. By then, the Michigan state popular vote results were certified. Judges Stephen Borrello and Amy Krause ruled that this rendered Trump's requests moot; it was too late to stop counting votes that were already counted, or to prevent a certification that was already complete. Judge Patrick Meter dissented to this ruling, saying that the Michigan Electors had not yet cast their votes, so there was still time do something. But the 2-1 majority ruling was binding.

Trump then appealed to the Michigan Supreme Court, which issued a very short statement saying, "we are not persuaded that the questions presented should be reviewed by this Court."

The preliminary injunction now concluded, the merits arguments stumbled along uneventfully until Jan 6, 2021, when Judge Stephens ruled the case moot.