Michigan Delivered an Accurate Election in 2020. DOJ Is Once Again Leaning on Disproven Claims.
In This Resource
On April 14, 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sent Wayne County, Michigan, a letter demanding all ballots and other election records from 2024, based on already-disproven allegations made after the 2020 election. In an echo of its seizure in Fulton County, Georgia, the DOJ is basing its activities on debunked conspiracy theories. This is both wasteful and dangerous—more evidence that DOJ is more focused on the president’s political agenda than it is on actual free and fair elections or public safety.
DOJ based its demands on allegations from a failed lawsuit attempting to prevent certification of Michigan’s 2020 presidential election results. That lawsuit, Costantino v. Detroit, made a number of extraordinary claims of election misconduct in Wayne County, some of which the DOJ letter repeats as the basis for its inquiry. What DOJ fails to note, however, is that those allegations were examined by a court, and ultimately dismissed as incorrect and not credible.
After a close examination of the evidence, the court concluded:
Perhaps if Plaintiffs’ election challenger affiants had attended the October 29, 2020 walk-through of the TCF Center ballot counting location, questions and concerns could have been answered in advance of Election Day. Regrettably, they did not and, therefore, Plaintiffs’ affiants did not have a full understanding of the TCF absent ballot tabulation process. No formal challenges were filed. However, sinister, fraudulent motives were ascribed to the process and the City of Detroit. Plaintiffs’ interpretation of events is incorrect and not credible.
The court specifically addressed virtually all of the allegations DOJ attempts to resurrect in Wayne County. Here, we show how the court previously responded to DOJ’s unsubstantiated claims.
The Claim
Defendants systematically processed and counted ballots from voters whose name failed to appear in either the Qualified Voter File (QVF) or in the supplemental sheets.
The Facts
Reviewing the evidence, the court concluded that this allegation was nothing more than a misunderstanding of Michigan election procedures. The allegation came from an individual at the operations at the TCF Center who did not understand that voter eligibility had already been determined at Detroit’s election headquarters, and was not being checked at the TCF Center.
The court also noted that the witness, an attorney, did not file any formal complaint at the TCF Center, instead coming forward to complain only “after the unofficial vote results indicated his candidate had lost.”1See pages 8-9. https://www.greatlakesjc.org/wp-content/uploads/Opinion-and-Order-Judge-Kenny-Costantino.pdf
The Claims
“Defendants instructed election workers to not verify signatures on absentee ballots, to backdate absentee ballots, and to process such ballots regardless of their validity,” and “Defendants instructed election workers to process ballots that appeared after the election deadline and to falsely report that those ballots had been received prior to November 3, 2020 deadline.”
The Facts
The court found that these allegations, both based on affidavits from the same witness, also were, at best, a misunderstanding of election procedures. Particularly, the witness seemed to not understand the fact that certain ballot verification procedures had already occurred before ballots were delivered for processing at the TCF Center.
The witness, who was employed as a temporary election worker at the TCF Center in Wayne County, “ascribe[d] a sinister motive” to the instructions she witnessed, including ballot dating and signature verification instructions. But testimony from Michigan’s long-time state election director explained that “there was no need for comparison of signatures” by the witness, “because eligibility had been reviewed and determined at the Detroit Election Headquarters” already. As to the allegation relating to ballot dating, that action “completed a data field inadvertently left blank during the initial absentee ballot verification process.”2See page 4. https://www.greatlakesjc.org/wp-content/uploads/Opinion-and-Order-Judge-Kenny-Costantino.pdf
The Claim
After election officials announced the last absentee ballots had been received, another batch of unsecured and unsealed ballots, without envelopes, arrived in trays at the TCF Center. There were tens of thousands of these absentee ballots, and apparently every ballot was counted and attributed only to Democratic candidates.
The Facts
In support of this claim, Plaintiffs cited an affidavit that fails to support several elements of this allegation. The affidavit does not say that a shipment arrived “after election officials announced the last absentee ballots had been received,” nor does it say that the witness saw “unsecured and unsealed ballots, without envelopes.” Moreover, the witness merely reports that the witness “heard counters say at least five or six times that all five or six ballots were for Joe Biden,” not that “every ballot” was “attributed only to Democratic candidates.”3See exhibit. https://statesunited.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/2020.11.08-Ex.-C-Sitto-Affidavit.pdf In other words, the testimony reveals only that the witness saw ballots arriving at the TCF Center and heard that many of them were cast for Democratic candidates. As the court found, the rest of his affidavit is “rife with speculation and guesswork about sinister motives.” What the witness actually observed, “is not surprising … in light of the fact that Vice President Biden received approximately 220,000 more votes than President Trump.”4See page 6. https://www.greatlakesjc.org/wp-content/uploads/Opinion-and-Order-Judge-Kenny-Costantino.pdf
The Claim
Defendants systematically used false information to process ballots, such as using incorrect or false birthdays.
The Facts
Plaintiffs offered another affidavit as proof of this allegation. That affidavit contains no allegation on this point. While a separate affidavit alleges that “[e]very ballot was being fraudulently and manually entered into the Electronic Poll Book (QVF) as having been born on January 1, 1900,” this nonsensical allegation has no evident connection to election results or any impact on the outcome.
The challengers asked both the court of appeals and the Michigan Supreme Court to reverse the court’s decision. But both courts refused.
The Michigan Senate Oversight Committee also performed a thorough and bipartisan examination of the 2020 election, including an analysis of claims like the ones cited by DOJ. That investigation involved a review of “many hours of first-hand testimony regarding the events that transpired at the TCF Center on and around Election Day,” and “more than 200 sworn affidavits submitted by first-hand and second-hand witnesses.”
The Oversight Committee’s conclusions echo those of the court.5See pages 24 and 26. https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/99/doccuments/20210623/SMPO_2020ElectionReport.pdf And, in the end, the committee concluded that there was, “no evidence of widespread or systematic fraud in Michigan’s prosecution of the 2020 election.”6See page 3. https://misenategopcdn.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/99/doccuments/20210623/SMPO_2020ElectionReport.pdf
In its letter, DOJ also cited three voter-fraud prosecutions. Notably, these investigations were a result of Michigan Attorney General Nessel’s own efforts to ensure the integrity of Michigan’s elections. Systems are in place to prevent and catch violations. While rare, violations are caught and prosecuted.
Despite the Justice Department’s invocation of misleading, false claims, all of these investigations show that our state-run election system is working. State and local officials will continue to work to keep our elections safe, secure, and accurate.