Non-citizen voting raises red flags in Michigan

Audio By Carbonatix

(The Center Square) — Fifteen non-citizens voted in the 2024 general election from Michigan, according to the Michigan Department of State.

In April 2025, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson released the results of an election review in which state investigators compared motor vehicle records with state voting records. The review found 15 noncitizens voted in the 2024 general election and 13 were referred to the Michigan attorney general.

“Our careful review confirms what we already knew – that this illegal activity is very rare,” Benson said. “While we take all violations of election law very seriously, this tiny fraction of potential cases in Michigan and at the national level do not justify recent efforts to pass laws we know would block tens of thousands of Michigan citizens from voting in future elections.”

Haoxing Gao, a Chinese national and one of the accused noncitizen voters, used his University of Michigan student ID to cast a ballot in the 2024 general election. Gao was charged with perjury and an unauthorized attempt to vote.

While his case was pending, Gao fled the country on Jan. 19, 2025, en route to China. He used a passport number different from that of the identification he handed over to the police, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“Illegal voting by a foreign national who is from a country controlled by a communist party dictatorship – with no modern history or tradition of democratic government – is beyond the pale,” U.S. Attorney Jerome Gorgon said. “I hope [the] charges send a message to foreign nationals – including those who are students at our universities – that we will not tolerate illegal voting.”

On Jan. 12, Macomb County Clerk Anthony Forlini expressed concern in a statement after comparing state license records with jury summons and voter registrations. He found 239 noncitizens in the jury pool over a four-month period, 14 of whom were registered to vote at some point.

Forlini called out Michigan’s voter registration process. He said Michigan does not use a federal database to verify citizenship when registering voters.

“We must find a way for the Driver’s License database to confirm citizenship. Many times there may be a language barrier, and applicants do not understand what they are signing," Forlini said. "If this is not addressed, we risk compromising our jury trials and our elections.

In a separate analysis of ballots from the 2020 general election, independent journalists uncovered thousands of digitized ballot images from Wayne County. In several down-ballot races, journalists discovered thousands of ballots containing circled bubbles that did not indicate a candidate’s name.

Hand-marked absentee ballots typically contained the most frequent occurrences of down-ballot races with unmarked bubbles, according to reports. 

The Center Square reviewed several examples in which down-ballot races had several bubbles marked without names that coincided. The specific races did not require a minimum number of bubbles to be circled.

These incidents of election issues under Secretary Jocelyn Benson’s office have prompted local leaders to call for further protections to prevent noncitizen and improper voting. As Benson steers into a campaign for Michigan governor, these issues are likely to follow her.

“Take advantage of new breakthroughs in linking several databases, where one database is able [to] flag another database for actual citizenship verification,” Forlini said.