DETROIT — Democratic congressional candidate Adam Hollier of Detroit has appealed a Wayne County ruling disqualifying him from the ballot to the office of Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

Hollier, in an appeal filed Friday, alleges that all of the candidates' nominating petitions in the 13th District race for U.S. House show "suspicious indicators" of fraud, including those of incumbent U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar of Detroit. He is asking Benson to validate the congressman's individual signatures, as well as those of Detroit City Councilwoman Mary Waters and attorney Shakira Hawkins, who also filed for the Democratic primary.

"Simply put, fraud and forgery by paid nominating petition circulators is a widespread problem already known to your Office and to the public," Hollier attorney Alan Wilk wrote in a letter to Benson. "This is a situation which justifies the expertise and resources of your Office to safeguard the nominating petition process for a very important Congressional Office."

Hollier's team also argues that Thanedar filed his challenge against Hollier's petitions under the wrong section of Michigan election law and filed it with the wrong office, so it shouldn't count.

Thanedar, however, is arguing that Benson in this situation has a conflict of interest because she has endorsed Hollier's campaign and purportedly signed his nominating petitions in February. Benson resides in the 13th District, which covers the bulk of Detroit, the Grosse Pointes and Downriver communities.

Thanedar said the situation puts Benson in an "awkward" position that she shouldn't be involved in as secretary of state.

"The latest appeal by Adam Hollier is another attempt to use his insider political connections to cover up his failure to collect valid signatures, including the hundreds of fraudulent ones he’s already admitted to submitting," Thanedar said in a statement.

"If Adam Hollier cannot complete a simple task of collecting 1,000 valid signatures, how can the voters trust him to solve the tough problems of flood relief, lack of public transportation, home repair assistance, low-income housing and much more?"

Thanedar noted that Heaster Wheeler, a senior adviser to Benson, also signed Hollier's petition. Wheeler served as Hollier's campaign manager last cycle.

A spokeswoman for Benson said Wednesday that Michigan law specifies that any appeals of county decisions on ballot access are reviewed and decided by the state Bureau of Elections, not Benson herself.

"BOE has a clear track record of applying the law fairly and meticulously when evaluating all allegations of any type of fraud in the signature gathering or petition process," Benson spokeswoman Angela Benander said. "That track record will continue for this and any other appeals filed with the state."

Hollier's appeal was filed within three days as required under Michigan election law. It's unclear whether the state Bureau of Elections would look into the complaint before Friday morning's meeting of the Board of State Canvassers, which is in charge of canvassing nominating petitions filed with the Secretary of State.

Hollier's appeal points to misspellings of common identifying information like street names and last names on Thanedar's petitions, such as Torry instead of Torrey, as well as alleged unregistered voters who signed. On Waters' sheets, Hollier alleged that there were patterns of forgery and fraud, such as similar handwriting for pages of her petitions and misspellings of names, street name, or city names.

Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett last week officially disqualified Hollier from the primary election ballot, finding he didn't submit enough valid voter signatures following a petition challenge by Thanedar.

Garrett concurred with her election staff, who issued a report saying Hollier had submitted 1,553 signatures but only 863 were valid ― 137 short of the 1,000 required for U.S. House candidates to qualify for the ballot.

The report highlighted that 28 petition pages had been disqualified for "obvious fraud" alone, while other signers were registered outside the 13th Congressional District or were duplicate signers.

Hollier has stipulated that certain signatures contained on his supplemental petitions were "likely" forged. He has said he's disappointed this happened, and that the campaign is in the process of reporting the suspected signature fraud to Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy.

The alleged forgery of petitions is reminiscent of the signature fraud scandal that blocked five Republican gubernatorial candidates from Michigan's primary ballot in 2022. In that episode, state election officials invalidated thousands of signatures submitted by the campaigns, finding many had been forged by petition circulators. Criminal charges were later filed against several of the signature collectors.

Thanedar won a nine-way primary in 2022 with 28% to Hollier's second-place showing of 24%.

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