LANSING — A petition fraud scandal threatening the candidacy of Republican gubernatorial front-runner James Craig has spread to at least three other Michigan candidates accused of submitting forged signatures from the same circulators in their quest to make the primary ballot.
Michigan gubernatorial, congressional and judicial candidates are required to submit voter signatures to qualify for the ballot, but experts say unusually high demand for paid circulators this spring led to a price spike that may have incentivized cheating or sloppy collections.
Now, political foes are challenging petitions and other campaign paperwork filed by 29 Michigan candidates, who can rebut those claims by Friday. State canvassers will decide who makes the ballot within the month.
A review by Bridge Michigan shows five of the challenges involve specific accusations of forged signatures on nominating petitions. Four of those — including petitions submitted by Craig and fellow GOP gubernatorial hopeful Perry Johnson — identify alleged forgeries by a group of circulators who collected for multiple candidates.
Challengers claim the ring used a "round-robin" technique to fill out each other’s petitions by forging names from a list of legitimate voters. Tell-tale signs made fakes easy to spot: Similar handwriting, repeated spelling errors and consistent patterns across multiple petition sheets, according to the challenges.
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