Republicans sue Michigan to make it easier to disrupt ballot counting and challenge voters in the midterms

The Republican National Committee (RNC) sued Michigan Sec. of State Jocelyn Benson (D) Tuesday to block protections that make it harder for partisan poll challengers to interrupt the state’s ballot-counting process. 

The lawsuit sends an ominous signal that the GOP will pull out all the stops to disrupt vote counting and challenge voters’ eligibility this fall.

“This isn’t about the law; it’s part of the RNC’s long-running effort to cast doubt on our ability to administer free and fair elections and lay the groundwork for them to challenge any legitimate election result they don’t like,” Angela Benander, Benson’s chief communications officer, told Democracy Docket. “Their goal is always the same – to create chaos and confusion that will discourage or even block eligible Michiganders from voting.”

At issue is guidance on poll challengers issued by Benson in Oct. 2024, which was added to Michigan’s administrative rules in May 2026. The RNC claims that the new rules — which limit the number of poll challengers at each location and make it harder for them to lodge frivolous challenges that delay or disrupt the ballot-counting process — violate Michigan law and are part of a broader Democratic ploy to undermine elections. 

“Jocelyn Benson is trying to sideline the citizens who help keep elections transparent,” RNC Chairman Joe Gruters said in a statement. “Michigan voters deserve oversight, not secrecy, and the RNC will fight every Democrat attempt to weaken election integrity.”

It’s not the first time the RNC has tried to block Benson’s changes to poll challenger rules. When Benson set new rules for the 2022 midterms, the RNC also sued to block the changes. But in August 2024, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld the new guidance. After the court victory, Benson updated the rules again ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

In response, Benander slammed the RNC’s losing court record.

“The RNC is better at getting headlines than they are at winning their court cases,” she said. “They haven’t gotten around to serving us with their latest frivolous lawsuit, but their press release is riddled with errors – most egregiously, their claim that they ‘previously defeated’ our department’s guidance for poll challengers. They lost that case in the Michigan Supreme Court.”

Poll challengers — who differ from poll watchers and poll workers — are citizens appointed by political parties and nonpartisan groups to observe the ballot-counting process at polling places. Unlike poll watchers, challengers have the authority to challenge a voter’s eligibility or question election administration procedures if they have good reason to believe something is amiss. 

Benson, who is running for governor, issued new guidelines for poll challengers in 2024 in response to a 2020 incident in which chaos erupted at a Detroit vote-counting center after Republicans were told the facility was at capacity for poll challengers. The GOP had nearly twice the allowed number of challengers at Detroit’s TCF Center, observing ballot tabulation, but when election officials wouldn’t let any more challengers in and locked the doors, Republican officials who were denied entry became angry, and police were called in to keep the crowds back. 

Benson’s guidelines include limits on the number of challengers stationed at polling places and vote-counting centers, a ban on challenging the eligibility of absentee ballots, and clearer guidance for removing challengers repeatedly making frivolous challenges that don’t pass legal muster — in order to delay or disrupt the ballot-counting process. 

The RNC wants a state court to overturn Benson’s new poll challenger rules. That would make it much easier for the GOP to disenfranchise voters by successfully challenging their eligibility, and to delay the vote-counting process in a pivotal swing state this fall.