A small court victory in Michigan is a hopeful sign going into Election Day.
Kevin Kijewski, the Republican running for attorney general in Michigan, celebrated on Monday the state Republican Party’s success in obtaining an order from the Michigan Court of Claims to preserve pollbooks with crucial voter data instead of deleting the data after a week.
BREAKING: WE WON. A MICHIGAN COURT JUST STRUCK DOWN MICHIGAN SECRETARY OF STATE JOCELYN BENSON'S RULE ORDERING CLERKS TO DELETE ELECTION POLL BOOKS. FINAL JUDGMENT. PERMANENT. STATEWIDE. "Rule 168.48 is invalid." The rule: DELETE the poll book files after every election. The law: KEEP election records 22 months. The Court: "When an administrative rule conflicts with a statute, the statute controls." One township clerk asked which law to follow. Nobody answered. So Michelle McQueer sued. 82 days later, she won. For EVERY clerk in Michigan. Starting with TOMORROW'S election. And the Court directed the Secretary to write NEW instructions for all 1,520 clerks that follow the ruling. The poll book files go on encrypted flash drives and stay there for 22 months. Remember what we said in October? Reconstruction is not preservation. The Court agreed: "Retaining the metadata is as crucial as retaining the data itself." READ THAT ONE TWICE. The State's big burden? The Court found it's "at most, $100 per additional flash drive." Thank you to the RNC and Michigan Republican Party for joining me in the fight. The State can appeal. Until a court ever says otherwise, the poll books stay. ONE CLERK. TWO LAWS. THE LAW WON. The Opinion: https://t.co/5RzUfmForW McQueer v Benson, Michigan Court of Claims No. 26-000172-MZ Let's make Michigan safe, normal, and responsible again! 🇺🇸 @MIGOP @Republicans @WhiteHouse @MI_Republicans @Th_Midwesterner @MINewsSource @stevegrubershow @MrJustinBarclay @JonathanTurley @RobGouveiaEsq @downi75 @Mike_Cox @MrAustinPredict @gatewaypundit @honestpollster @mifairelections @dcexaminer @MZHemingway @jsolomonReports @HarmeetKDhillon
— Kevin Kijewski (@KevinKijewski) November 2, 2026
The law requires preservation of the records for 22 months, so the rule that Michigan Democrats had was in conflict with the law, hence the ruling.
Goodness knows Americans need some election integrity wins today. The Supreme Court refused to intervene and prevent California from counting 20,000 noncitizen ballots. And the Ninth Circuit Court panel first lifted a restraining order on the Trump administration sequestering non-citizen ballots, and then the full court almost immediately vacated it. Not exactly an encouraging sign for the courts doing their duty to prevent American voters’ will from being canceled out by fraud.
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Notably, last week, the Court of Claims ruled that there was a temporary restraining order requiring Michigan officials to preserve their electronic pollbooks. That was only to last until the resolution of the case brought by Bridgewater Township Clerk Michelle McQueer and the Michigan Republican Party. The new ruling, therefore, turns the temporary order into a permanent one.
Michigan Advance explains that an electronic pollbook, or EPB, is “used for processing voters, generating precinct reports, and recording voter history at in-person polling places.” Until now, EPB “software and associated files must be deleted from all devices by the seventh day following the final canvass and certification of the election.” This makes it obviously more difficult to conduct audits and investigations after the fact.
Fortunately, the new ruling should ensure that audits and investigations can effectively dig into data.