Disputes over nominating petitions; MCL 168.552; Mandamus; Holliday v Board of State Canvassers; Distinguishing Wilcoxon v City of Detroit Election Comm’n & Protecting MI Taxpayers v Board of State Canvassers; Qualified voter file (QVF)

In this dispute over nominating petitions and placement on the November ballot, the court held that plaintiff-candidate failed to show she was entitled to the extraordinary mandamus remedy. Thus, it affirmed the trial court’s denial of that requested relief. Plaintiff sought to be included on the ballot as a candidate for a seat on the Wayne County Probate Court. She submitted 5,494 signatures on her nominating petitions, but after a review defendant-Wayne County Clerk determined that the “petitions were not supported by at least” the required 4,000 valid elector signatures. Defendant ultimately found a total of 3,432 valid signatures. On appeal, the court noted that MCL 168.552 provides the procedures for investigating and resolving nominating petition disputes. While plaintiff disputed “the findings of the Clerk and her staff, her mere supposition that the signature comparison and review might not have actually occurred as described in the” Clerk’s staff reports was only speculative. To the extent that she disagreed “with the methodology employed by the Clerk and her staff as described in the reports, those critiques are misplaced—at least as an argument concerning entitlement to mandamus, rather than a policy argument directed to the Legislature—given the discretionary nature of the signature-comparison process.” She did not identify any authority supporting “that this methodology failed to account for any mandatory duties of the Clerk and/or her staff.” She also failed to identify “authority establishing that the Clerk had a clear legal duty to provide particular documents or information in support of her determination beyond what the record presently reflects, or to afford plaintiff access to the QVF for purposes of having her own expert conduct an independent signature comparison.” The court noted that she failed to “explain how, in light of the fact-based disputes she has identified, she” could meet her burden of showing she was entitled to the requested writ. It found that the cases on which she relied, Wilcoxon and Protecting MI Taxpayers, were distinguishable and unpersuasive.