LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Pauline Schmainda, who passed away in 1990, can still vote in Michigan. That’s because Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson refuses to clean up the voter rolls in the state, alleges the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) and many other critics of the state’s chief election official.

In an exclusive mini-documentary, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a conservative legal group, reports that they have been notifying Benson about the names of deceased registrants on Michigan’s voter rolls since 2020.

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PILF Communications Director Lauren Bis, visiting Schmainda’s grave marker, noted that 16 federal elections have occurred since her death. But she’s still registered to vote thanks to Benson.

Grave markers of dead Michigan registered voters found.

In their documentary, the PILF investigation uncovered the actual grave markers of deceased Michigan residents who are still signed up to vote in the state. The video footage sheds light on the inclusion of long-deceased individuals as active voters, persisting for decades after their demise.

In addition to Schmainda, another highlighted case the group exposed is Mamie Jones, whose voter file indicated a birth year of 1823, a remarkable 14 years prior to Michigan’s statehood. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly to some, records examined by PILF reveal that Jones was registered to vote as recently as 2008.

Without clean voter rolls, the election system is vulnerable, says group.

Bis says in the video, “Voter rolls are the most essential election integrity document. The voter rolls tell election officials who is eligible to vote. Each error on the voter rolls is a vulnerability in our elections.”

Bis adds that PILF put out a report in October of 2018 called “Motor Voter Mayhem” detailing thousands of errors on Michigan’s voter rolls including “foreign nationals registered to vote, people registered more than once and registrants with implausible birth years.”

The mismanagement of Michigan’s voter rolls becomes even more evident as PILF identifies generations of residents, including Theresa Domasiewicz and her son Thomas, still listed as active electors despite being deceased for decades.

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The negligence is underscored by the fact that over 17,000 registrants on PILF’s list passed away over a decade ago, as reported by Bis.

SOS Democratic Jocelyn Benson has known about the problem for years.

PILF initiated efforts to rectify the inaccuracies within Michigan’s voter rolls in 2020 when the group informed Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson about deceased registrants remaining on the lists.

Despite the notification, Benson took no action, prompting PILF to file a lawsuit in November 2021. The legal challenge accused Benson of violating the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which mandates the removal of ineligible voters from official lists.

PILF claims that there are at least 25,000 dead people still registered to vote on Michigan’s voter rolls, over 17,000 of them having passed away over a decade ago.

Instead of cleaning up the voter rolls, Benson persists in fighting against it.

Despite a federal judge denying Benson’s attempt to dismiss the lawsuit in August 2022, she persists in resisting PILF’s efforts in court.

PILF President J. Christian Adams, in conversation with The Federalist, highlighted Benson’s stance, attributing her reluctance to clean up Michigan’s voter rolls to a belief that time alone will naturally remove dead and ineligible residents. However, Adams pointed out the flaw in this reasoning, emphasizing that some of these deceased registrants haven’t voted in two decades.

Benson had said in January of 2023, “Michigan’s elections are among the most secure and accurate in the nation thanks to the professionalism of the more than 1,600 Republican, Democratic, and nonpartisan election clerks across the state and the numerous security protocols built into our elections system.”

Michigan News Source reached out to Benson for comment on why she’s fighting the lawsuit to remove dead people from the state’s voter rolls but she did not return our request for comment.