Eligibility requirements for district court judges; MCL 168.467; “Qualified elector” (MCL 168.10(1)); 30-day local residency requirement; 1963 Const, art 2, § 4(1); Mandamus; Declaratory judgment; Complaint amendment; Undue delay & prejudice to defendants; Secretary of State (SOS); Affidavit of identity (AOI)

The court held that 1963 Const, art 2, § 4(1) has not superseded and rendered void the 30-day local residency requirement to be a “qualified elector.” And because plaintiff failed to meet that “requirement and was not a ‘qualified elector,’ he had no clear legal right to have his candidacy” for district court judge certified by defendant-SOS “and the SOS had no clear legal duty to certify his candidacy.” Thus, the court affirmed summary disposition for defendants. Plaintiff sought to be a judicial candidate for the 31st District Court, which covers the city of Hamtramck. His complaint asked for, among other things, a writ of mandamus compelling “the SOS to accept his AOI and recognize that he was a ‘duly qualified elector’ of Hamtramck on” the filing deadline date. He also sought a declaratory judgment. The court held that under MCL 168.467, MCL 168.10(1), and Const 1963, art 2, § 1, he was “not eligible for the office of judge in the 31st District Court. The ‘filing deadline’ was” 4/21/26, the day that he “filed his nominating petitions and AOI, and on that date, plaintiff had not lived in Hamtramck for 30 days.” According to one of his petitions, just one day earlier, he “lived in Warren. Because plaintiff had not resided in Hamtramck for 30 days before the filing deadline, he was not a ‘qualified elector of the judicial district and election division in which election is sought by the filing deadline.’” And the court rejected his challenge to MCL 168.10(1)’s 30-day local residency requirement based on 1963 Const, art 2, § 4(1). While that provision “gives persons the ‘right to register to vote’ through the day of the election, the right is only granted to ‘elector[s] qualified to vote,’ and to be qualified to vote, an elector must have lived in the township or city for not less than 30 days before the election. The Court of Claims properly concluded that the 30-day local residency requirement does not conflict with 1963 Const, art 2, § 4(1)(f).” As to the opportunity to amend his complaint, among other things the court found that “particularized reasons—undue delay and prejudice to defendants—existed to deny” such a request.