(WWJ) – Former Detroit Police Chief James Craig and Oakland County businessman Perry Johnson – two leading Republican candidates to challenge Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer this fall – are among five candidates that have been found ineligible for the August primary election.
Craig, Johnson and three lesser-known candidates – businesswoman Donna Brandenburg of Byron Center, Grand Haven financial adviser Michael Markey and Michigan State Police Capt. Mike Brown – did not qualify for the primary ballot after a 2-2 vote split along party lines by the Board of State Canvassers on Thursday.
The vote came days after the Michigan Bureau of Elections found the candidates filed too many invalid petition signatures, failing to reach the 15,000-signature threshold to make the ballot.
Thursday’s vote will likely lead to a large legal battle, as Craig has already said he intends to file an “immediate appeal in the courts.”
Though Brown has already reportedly withdrawn from contention, it was not immediately clear whether the other candidates will appeal Thursday’s decision.
It is unclear whether appeals will go directly to the Michigan Supreme Court or first to the Michigan Court of Appeals.
The state has said it needs a final decision by June 3rd in order to get ballots printed and prepared before the August primaries.
The Republican members of the Board of State Canvassers – Tony Daunt and Chairman Norman Shinkle – voted to allow the candidates on the ballot, while Democrats Jeannette Bradshaw and Vice Chair Mary Ellen Gurewitz voted to keep them off.
“The suggestion by the candidates is that if we do not actually compare each of those seemingly false signatures to the qualified voter file, then we have to accept them, which is a totally absurd position,” Gurewitz said.
Shinkle, meanwhile, said the candidates themselves are victims too, and believes this is a matter for the courts to decide.
“These people should all go to prison, the circulators that defrauded the candidates and defrauded us. I’m not prepared to shift any burden to the candidates today myself. I’m not prepared to throw everybody off the ballot myself. We’ll leave that up to the courts,” he said.