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B URE A U O F E LE CT ION S R IC HA RD H . A US T IN B U IL D I NG 1S T F LO OR 43 0 W . A L LE GA N L A NS IN G , M IC H IG A N 4 8 91 8
www. M i ch i ga n .g o v / so s ( 51 7 ) 3 7 3 - 2 5 4 0
May 23, 2014
REVIEW OF APPEALS
OF WAYNE COUNTY CLERK’S DETERMINATION
Congressman John Conyers, Jr.
Candidate for U.S. Representative in Congress, 13th
District
Two appeals were filed concerning the Wayne County Clerk’s official determination that
Congressman John Conyers, Jr.’s nominating petition contained an insufficient number of valid
signatures. The first appeal was filed by Rev. Horace Sheffield and Richard Jones on May 14,
2014; the second appeal was filed by Congressman Conyers on May 16, 2014.
NUMBER OF VALID SIGNATURES REQUIRED: 1,000.
TOTAL FILING: 2,000 signatures, excluding excess of 27 signatures over maximum number
authorized. MCL 168.544f.
CONCLUSION: The Secretary of State finds that Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett correctly
determined that Congressman Conyers’ failure to submit a minimum of 1,000 valid signatures
renders him ineligible to appear on the August 5, 2014 primary election ballot.
CONYERS APPEAL: Congressman Conyers seeks “a complete review and reversal of the
signatures improperly discarded by the Wayne County Clerk[,]” based on his assessment that the
circulator registration requirement of MCL 168.544c(3) is unconstitutional. Under that provision,
(3) At the time of circulation, the circulator of a petition shall be a registered elector
of this state. At the time of executing the certificate of circulator, the circulator shall
be registered in the city or township indicated in the certificate of circulator on the
petition. …
Secretary of State Review. The Bureau of Elections completed a thorough review of the entire
Conyers petition filing as permitted by law, which included:
A full face review of every petition sheet;
A voter registration status check and verification on all petition signers;
A complete review and verification of all petition signatures rejected by Wayne County;
and
A complete review and verification of the registration status of every petition circulator.
Based on this review, the final totals listed in this report differ from the findings of Wayne
County, primarily due to the discovery of an additional four circulators who were registered to
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vote at the time of circulation, but not in the city or township indicated in the Certificate of
Circulator (See Section II below).
Pending litigation. In addition to filing an administrative appeal with the Secretary of State,
Conyers filed suit against the Secretary and others in the federal District Court for the Eastern
District of Michigan challenging the constitutionality of MCL 168.544c(3). Moore v. Johnson,
USDC-ED No. 2:14-cv-11903.
Summary. As of this writing, while Conyers’ constitutional claims remain pending before the
District Court, the Secretary of State must enforce the circulator registration requirement as
written. As a result:
1. All signatures gathered by circulators who were registered to vote at the time of
circulation in the city or township indicated in the Certificate of Circulator are valid,
unless discounted for other reasons.
2. All signatures gathered by circulators who were registered to vote at the time of
circulation, but not in the city or township indicated in the Certificate of Circulator, are
invalid.
3. All signatures gathered by circulators who were not registered to vote at the time of
circulation are invalid.
Introduction. The Michigan Election Law is designed to protect the purity of the ballot access
process. The laws governing this activity place affirmative duties on petition circulators. As
evidenced over the past two election cycles, when campaigns fail to comply with the law by
executing basic principles of petition circulation, they create their own “ballot access crisis”
when their failures are discovered by or brought to the attention of election officials. In this
instance, consultant Steve Hood freely admitted that he failed to ensure that the petition
circulators he hired to work on Conyers’ campaign were registered to vote.1
Sections II and III below are prime examples of the failure to follow the basics, something that
thousands of campaigns routinely do each election cycle.
I. All signatures gathered by circulators who were registered to vote at the time of
circulation in the city or township indicated in the Certificate of Circulator are valid,
unless discounted for other reasons.2 Thus, the Secretary of State has counted all otherwise
valid signatures gathered by the following circulators:
Yvette McElroy Anderson Jacinta McCarver
Maurice Barrett Vernando Miree
Berline Brown Anthony Moore
Ulanda Caldwell Edith Turner
Florence Chambers Brenda L. Ward
Monica Conyers Marlita Washington
1 See Attachment 1, “Detroit consultant says he didn’t check voter status of Conyers’ petition circulators,” Detroit
News, May 14, 2014. 2 Other defects that may render a signature invalid include an incorrect or incomplete address, a signer who is not
registered to vote in the 13th
Congressional district, incorrect or incomplete date entry, etc.
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Julian Douglas Mamie Weathersby
Dameon Fentress Kenneth Wimberly
Patrick Jackson Frank D. Woods Jr.
Sanqustine Latham
In addition, the Secretary of State has counted all otherwise valid signatures collected by Davena
Hogan, whose voter registration record was erroneously updated earlier this year and
subsequently corrected after Wayne County completed its canvass of Conyers’ nominating
petition. However, all signatures gathered by Jamal Gooden and Simone Twiddy are invalid
despite the fact that they are both registered to vote in the jurisdiction provided in the Certificate
of Circulator, due to other defects on the petition.3
In all, this category yields 455 valid signatures for Congressman Conyers.
II. All signatures gathered by circulators who were registered to vote at the time of
circulation, but not in the city or township indicated in the Certificate of Circulator, are
invalid. Under current law, circulators are required to correctly identify and disclose the city or
township in which they are registered to vote. MCL 168.544c(3) (“At the time of executing the
certificate of circulator, the circulator shall be registered in the city or township indicated in the
certificate of circulator on the petition.”).
Legislative history of the disclosure requirement. This second sentence of MCL 168.544c(3)
is a disclosure requirement and was enacted by Public Act 329 of 1990, effective December 21,
1990, in reaction to Messerli v Board of State Canvassers,4 an unpublished opinion of the
Michigan Court of Appeals issued June 21, 1990, which held that despite a circulator’s failure to
list the precise city or township in which he was registered to vote, the petition was in
“substantial compliance” with MCL 168.544c. Within six months, Public Act 329 of 1990 was
enacted, vitiating the argument that a circulator who writes the wrong jurisdiction of registration
has substantially complied with the Michigan Election Law.
Significance of the disclosure requirement. The circulator’s city or township of registration is
significant, not “superfluous” as Conyers contends,5 in that it enables election officials to contact
a circulator if questions arise regarding the validity or genuineness of the signatures appearing on
the petition. This is particularly important given the relatively short interval of time between the
filing deadline and the deadline to certify the list of candidates who are eligible to appear on the
ballot, as well as the 7-day deadline for filing challenges against a candidate’s nominating
petition. For example, there are 1,134 individuals who share the name “James Smith” and are
registered to vote in Michigan.6 It would be virtually impossible to ascertain which “James
Smith” executed a particular petition as circulator if the requirement to disclose the correct
jurisdiction of registration was unenforceable.
3 Gooden failed to execute the Certificate of Circulator on one sheet and failed to provide his complete street
address on another. Twiddy wrote the names of two different jurisdictions in the Certificate of Circulator. 4 See Attachment 2, Messerli v Board of State Canvassers, Court of Appeals Dkt No 129867 (unpublished opinion).
The Supreme Court declined to hear the case on appeal. Messerli v Board of State Canvassers, lv den, 435 Mich.
858 (1990). 5 Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, p. 8.
6 Other common names include Michael Smith (1,130 registered statewide), Robert Smith (1,024), David Smith
(974), James Johnson (838), Robert Johnson (836), Michael Johnson (809), Mary Smith (755), David Johnson
(680), and William Smith (669). For example, using the name of one of Conyers’ circulators, there are 128
individuals named Anthony Moore who are registered to vote in the State of Michigan, 30 of them are registered in
the City of Detroit alone.
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The requirement that the circulator must disclose his or her jurisdiction of registration is akin to
the requirements imposed on a notary public, who must register with the Secretary of State by
providing his or her residence and business addresses and other identifying information.7 One
reason why a notary public must disclose an address is so that the Secretary of State can
promptly contact the notary in the event that a complaint arises or an investigation is necessary.8
Circulators who did not comply with the disclosure requirement. The following petition
circulators were registered to vote at the time of circulating Conyers’ petition, but in a different
jurisdiction than the one they identified in the Certificate of Circulator:
Name
City / Township
indicated in
Certificate of
Circulator
City / Township where
Registered to Vote at time
of circulation
Cassandra Johnson Wayne Detroit
Tyshay Jones Highland Park Detroit
Quinisha Peterson Wayne Pontiac
Charlotte Richardson Farmington Farmington Hills
Chinita Terry Detroit Oak Park
Circulator Chinita Terry. One circulator in particular, Chinita Terry, filed a declaration that
her address for voter registration purposes was “mistakenly changed” by the Secretary of State
when she attempted to provide an alternate mailing address because she had been the victim of
mail theft,9 rendering all of the signatures she collected invalid. However, Terry’s Qualified
Voter File (QVF) record indicates that she has changed her address at various Secretary of State
branch offices 8 times since June 2003, including 7 times in the past 7 years.10
Chinita Terry
Registration Date
City / Township in
which Registered to
Vote
Voting History
2002 Detroit 2002 August state primary
2002 November state general
June 10, 2003 West Bloomfield None
February 20, 2007 Detroit None
December 11, 2007 West Bloomfield None
January 22, 2008 Detroit
2008 August state primary
2008 November state general
2009 May city election
2009 August city primary
2009 November city general
2010 August state primary
2010 November state general
2012 February presidential primary
7 MCL 55.275(1).
8 MCL 55.295, 299, 300.
9 Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, Exhibit 13, Declaration of Chinita Terry.
10 See Attachment 3, Change History for Chinita Ann Terry.
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Registration Date
City / Township in
which Registered to
Vote
Voting History
June 4, 2012 Oak Park 2012 August state primary
2012 November state general
April 26, 2013 Detroit 2013 November city general
February 25, 2014 Oak Park None
May 14, 2014 Detroit N/A
Three items merit note with respect to Terry’s address history. First, when Terry changed her
address at the Secretary of State branch office on February 25, 2014, she signed a voter
registration application11
that included the following certification statement:
I am a citizen of the United States. I am a resident of the State of Michigan and will
be at least a 30 day resident of my city or township by election day. I will be 18
years of age by election day. I authorize cancellation of any previous registration.
The information I have provided is true to the best of my knowledge under penalty of
perjury. If I have provided false information, I may be subject to a fine or
imprisonment or both under Federal or State laws.
(Emphasis added). Although Terry claims that “[w]hen I asked the Secretary of State to change
my mailing address, I never intended for my voter registration address to change[,]”12
in the
declaration that Conyers appended to his appeal to the Secretary of State, Terry’s declaration is
plainly contradicted by the voter registration application she executed on February 25, 2014. In
fact, according to Secretary of State branch office documents, the very first time Terry attempted
to add a mailing address to her record was on May 14, 2014.
Second, in accordance with MCL 168.499(3), the Oak Park City Clerk’s office mailed voter
identification cards to Terry on two separate occasions, on or about March 3, 2014 and April 15,
2014,13
neither of which were returned undelivered to the Clerk’s office. Thus, Terry was on
notice that she was registered to vote in Oak Park. This is not the first time that Terry registered
to vote in Oak Park.
Third, at the August primary and November general elections held in 2012, Terry voted in Oak
Park, where she was then registered to vote.14
In sum, Terry is well aware of the process for
effectuating a change in address for voting purposes, having frequently availed herself of it on
numerous occasions. The Secretary of State therefore concludes that Terry knowingly registered
to vote in Oak Park and therefore could not claim to be registered at the Detroit address while
circulating Conyers’ petition.15
Conclusion. Applying current law with respect to circulators Johnson, Jones, Peterson,
Richardson, and Terry, all of whom are registered to vote yet failed to disclose the correct name
of the jurisdiction in which they are registered, each of the 661 signatures they gathered are
invalid.
11 See Attachment 4, Affidavit of Stephanie Sumner, p. 3.
12 Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, Exhibit 13, Declaration of Chinita Terry.
13 See Attachment 4, Affidavit of Stephanie Sumner, ¶7-8.
14 See Attachment 4, Affidavit of Stephanie Sumner, p. 5.
15 Terry collected 316 otherwise valid signatures and 153 invalid signatures, for a total of 469 signatures.
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III. All signatures gathered by circulators who were not registered to vote at the time of
circulation are invalid. Current Michigan law mandates that all circulators of nominating
petitions must be registered to vote in the State of Michigan. MCL 168.544c(3). A circulator’s
failure to register is a fatal defect that renders all signatures appearing on a petition he or she
circulated invalid. Thus, all signatures collected by Alex Canty, Daniel Pennington, and Tiara
Willis-Pittman have been discounted, due to the circulator’s registration status. Two of these
circulators, Pennington and Willis-Pittman, allegedly were registered to vote by Chinita Terry in
December, 2013.
Circulator Daniel Pennington. Pennington claims to have “registered as a voter with the
Michigan Secretary of State’s office, located at 11533 East Twelve Mile Road, Warren, MI
48093” on December 13, 2013, the exact same day he also claims to have “filled out a voter
registration form, which I delivered to Chinita Terry.”16
Further, the Secretary of State record of
his December 19, 2013 visit to the branch office indicates that he did not register to vote in
conjunction with his request for a duplicate state personal identification card (not a duplicate
driver’s license as indicated in his “Affidavit of Fact”). Although he claims to have “received a
receipt from the Secretary of State confirming the fact of my registration, which I subsequently
misplaced[,]” Secretary of State records confirm that he did not attempt to register during his
December 19, 2013 visit to the Warren branch office and therefore could not possibly have been
issued a receipt. See MCL 168.500a(2), 168.509w(1)(b) (requiring Secretary of State branch
office employees to issue a receipt as proof of application).
Instead, a photocopy of Pennington’s voter registration application (dated December 13, 2013)
was delivered to the Detroit City Clerk for the first time on April 28, 201417
but was improperly
recorded as received on December 13, 2013 – a clerical error that was promptly corrected.
Before the error was discovered, Pennington asked for and received a receipt from the Detroit
City Clerk that bore the erroneous December date. However, this “receipt” does not change the
date of Pennington’s registration and therefore does not make the signatures he collected valid.
Further details regarding the April 28, 2014 transaction are provided in the Affidavits of Gina
Avery and Alicia Brown.18
Circulator Tiara Willis-Pittman. Like Pennington, Willis-Pittman claims to have “filled out a
voter registration application on December 13, 2013 and handed it to a woman doing voter
registration.”19
In an earlier written statement, Willis-Pittman identifies the person who received
her application as Chinita Terry.20
Terry claims that she received the applications of Pennington,
Willis-Pittman, and other unidentified individuals on December 13, 2013 at “a voter registration
fair,” and to have delivered the forms to the Detroit City Clerk on December 16, 2013.21
Yet the
16 Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, Exhibit 3.
17 Under MCL 168.509x(a), “An application for registration is considered to be received on or before the close of
registration, if 1 of the following requirements is met: (a) An application is received at a department of state office, a
designated voter registration agency, or the office of a county, city, or township clerk on or before the close of
registration.” Thus, Pennington’s application is considered received on April 28, 2014, despite the earlier date of
execution. 18
Attachment 5, Affidavit of Gina Avery and Attachment 6, Affidvit of Alicia Brown. 19
Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, Exhibit 4, Declaration of Tiara Willis-Pittman dated May 12, 2014. 20
Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, Exhibit 4, Affidavit of Fact executed by Tiara Willis-Pittman on April
30, 2014. 21
Conyers Appeal to the Secretary of State, Exhibit 2, Declaration of Chinita Terry. Neither Pennington, Willis-
Pittman, or Terry describe the location of the voter registration fair or identify the sponsoring organization(s),
making it impossible to verify their account. Furthermore, the disposition of the other voter registration application
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Detroit City Clerk’s office denies that it received Pennington and Willis-Pittman’s applications
until photocopies of these two forms were delivered on April 28, 2014, having confirmed that
“[a]fter a thorough search there is no documentation in [the Detroit City Clerk’s] office to
confirm that an original voter registration document was received by our office for either Tiara
Willis-Pittman or Daniel Pennington on December 13, 2013, or any other date prior to April 28,
2014.”22
Coupled with Terry’s statements regarding her own registration status, her account
regarding the alleged delivery of Pennington and Willis-Pittman’s applications to the Detroit
City Clerk on December 16, 2013 are of dubious value.
Circulator Alex Canty. Canty was not registered to vote anywhere in Michigan at the time he
circulated Congressman Conyers’ nominating petition.
Conclusion. In sum, the Secretary of State finds that Pennington and Willis-Pittman were
registered to vote on April 28, 2014, the date their applications were first delivered to the Detroit
City Clerk, and that contrary to MCL 168.544c(3), they were not registered to vote at the time of
circulation. As a result, all 478 signatures gathered by Canty, Pennington, and Willis-Pittman
are invalid.
DISPOSITION OF CONYERS APPEAL: Based on the foregoing, the Secretary of State
finds that Congressman Conyers submitted a total of 455 valid signatures.
The following chart is provided to explain the status of the petition should Judge Leitman’s order
result in circulators described in Sections II and III of this report be included as valid.
If the petition sheets circulated by individuals who were registered to vote at the time of
circulation but failed to disclose the correct jurisdiction of registration are included, 398
valid signatures are added to the total number of valid signatures submitted by Conyers.
This yields 853 valid signatures (455 + 398).
If the petition sheets circulated by individuals who were not registered to vote at the time
of circulation are included, 367 valid signatures are added to the total number of valid
signatures submitted by Conyers. This yields 1,220 signatures (455 + 398 + 367).
See Chart, p. 8.
forms Terry claims to have delivered to the Detroit City Clerk on December 16, 2013 is not known, as she has not
provided any identifying information regarding these applicants, again making it impossible to confirm whether
Terry delivered any voter registration application forms to the Detroit City Clerk on that date. 22
Attachment 6, Affidavit of Gina Avery, ¶2.
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Category Finding Number of Valid
Signatures
Number of Invalid
Signatures – Signer
not registered to
vote or not
registered in 13th
Congressional
District
Number of
Invalid
Signatures –
other fatal
defects23
Subtotal
I. Circulators who were
registered to vote at the
time of circulation in
the city/township
indicated in Certificate
of Circulator
Signatures in
this category
are valid unless
discounted for
other reasons
455 294 112 861
II. Circulators who were
registered to vote at the
time of circulation, but
not in the city/township
indicated in Certificate
of Circulator
Signatures in
this category
are invalid
0 *
*(398 if allowed) 205 58 661
SUBTOTAL if this category is included 853 499 170 1,552
III. Circulators who
were not registered to
vote at the time of
circulation
Signatures in
this category
are invalid
0 *
*(367 if allowed) 87 24 478
TOTAL
1,220
(This includes total
signatures in
Categories I, II and
III)
586 194 2,000
SHEFFIELD APPEAL: The Secretary of State declines to address Sheffield’s appeal, as he is
not “a person feeling aggrieved” possessing appeal rights within the meaning of MCL
168.552(6). The determination by the Wayne County Clerk was favorable to Sheffield. As a
result, he was not aggrieved by the clerk’s decision. Kocenda v. Archdiocese of Detroit, 204
Mich App 659, 666, 516 NW2d 132 (1994).
Nonetheless, Sheffield’s appeal asks the Secretary of State to discount signatures appearing on
sheets that were previously invalidated by the Wayne County Clerk due to the circulators’ failure
to comply with the voter registration requirement of MCL 168.554c(3), for the additional reason
that these circulators failed to provide their true address, misrepresented the fact that they were
registered to vote, or both, in violation of MCL 168.544c(11)(b) (“An individual shall not …
make a false statement in a certificate on a petition.”). When filing his challenge to Conyers’
nominating petition, Sheffield did not ask the Wayne County Clerk to reject these signatures on
the additional grounds alleged here. Therefore, he cannot be aggrieved by the Clerk’s failure to
take this new argument into account when rendering her final determination.
23 See Footnote 1.
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