A right-leaning group that focuses on cleaning up voter registration rolls has sued Detroit election officials after identifying more than 2,500 dead people who are registered to vote.
More than half the people identified by the conservative Public Interest Legal Foundation have been dead longer than a decade, nearly 900 have been dead more than 15 years more than 300 for greater than 20 years. The group even found one registered voter with a birth date listed as 1823, before Michigan became a state.
In addition, foundation researchers discovered what appeared to be duplicate and triplicate registrations for individuals, using different addresses.
The suit claims the city has violated the National Voter Registration Act by failing to properly maintain the voting rolls.
Such poorly maintained lists undermine the integrity of the elections in the city, the suit alleges. It asks the court to find the city in violation of federal law and mandate that Detroit develop and implement a list maintenance program.
The number of improper names on the Detroit rolls represents only a fraction of the total count of registered voters. The lawsuit claims 500,000 were registered in the city in 2016, but those are not the most recent figures. The broader Wayne County elections office says 473,000 were registered for the 2018 midterm. And the foundation has been criticized previously, for what some liberal groups believe is misleading fearmongering that in turn creates a genuine opportunity for voter fraud.
Christian Adams, the general counsel for the foundation, was appointed to President's Trump short-lived and controversial Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, which was set up to look at Trump's claims of voter fraud in the 2016 election. It was disbanded after just a few months without delivering any results.
In the Detroit case, the group purchased the city's voter registration list and cross-checked it against a Social Security database listing people who have died. They then double-checked against published obituaries.
The group repeatedly brought its findings to the attention of Detroit election officials but says the city did not take any steps to clean up the voting rolls.
Conservative groups around the country have argued in recent years that the inclusion of ineligible voters on registration lists creates an opportunity for voter fraud. Liberal groups and Democrats have responded that this is a red herring and that there have been only a handful of examples in recent history where someone voted by taking on the identity of another person.
But claims of widespread in-person voter fraud and associated fears been used in recent years to push for more rigorous voter identification laws. Liberal advocacy groups believe those laws act to suppress turnout, particularly among minorities.
U.S. President Donald Trump boards Air Force One on August 14, 2026 at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland. Trump is traveling to Long Island to tour law enforcement facilities in Nassau County and rally support for local Republican candidates ahead of the upcoming midterm elections
Travel Far Enough, You Meet Yourself
Is it possible that our President has simply not traveled enough?
Born and raised in Queens and attending Fordham University in the Bronx, Donald Trump has no record of traveling outside New York until he was over 20, when he transferred to a college in the neighboring state of Pennsylvania. Were his formative years amiss, then, in his learning about other places and other people?
Is his view akin to the famous New Yorker cover by Saul Steinberg, an illustration of the United States with New York City as the epicenter of the country and the Hudson River the border of the known world? We can now at least add Washington, D.C., and Mar-a-Lago to the map of “the realm.”
Our President has now traveled some, but what we recommend is another kind of travel. Not a state-sponsored trip or a venture to scout locations for future Trump Towers. This would be a genuine travel experience, enriching and eye-opening, showcasing other cultures and ways of living.
It will extend far beyond viewing military parades, hobnobbing with such “understanding” world leaders as Kim Jong Un, or taking tea with the King.
WHERE, then, should the President go? As Elon Musk’s Starship spacecraft is not yet ready to take passengers to Mars, perhaps he could explore our own vast country?
Maybe he could travel to “flyover country,” the farming states, where his ying-yanging tariffs and trade restrictions have played havoc with rural economies. Or possibly to California, number one in homeless U. S. citizens, and while there, regale homeless veterans (approximately 32,500 nationwide) with tales of his brave exploits invading and bombing foreign countries.
Or he might tour the Great Lakes, and rename the other four?
WHEN should he go? This will be tough, as he is very busy building his ballroom and renaming bodies of water.
How about a trip in early November, around the midterm elections? Despite the long-discredited accusation of widespread voter fraud, it would be reassuring to know he might be so caught up divvying out ladles of soup in a soup kitchen somewhere that he wouldn’t remember to deploy the military for “election security.”
HOW will he travel? He should definitely not take his Qatari-donated, newly renovated 747, especially after last time, when he had to be smuggled off clandestinely in a catering truck. It’s unlikely any traveling companions, like the Secretary of State or of the Treasury, are going to fall for the ruse a second time. Besides, we may need those people. No more decoys!
Perhaps the President could fly commercially, although this likely would expose him to undue suffering. Without gold bathroom fixtures and maple wood floors, the trip will be no “Luxury Experience.” If only he still had his “Trump Shuttle,” bought with a massive loan he later defaulted on, saying then, “I’m smart. I got out at a good time.”
Considering the potential pitfalls, maybe it’s best the President travel incognito, disguised perhaps as an elderly woman wearing a lot of bronzer.
Wherever, whenever, however: our President needs a vacation.
Moreover, we need a vacation from him.
If the President refuses our travel suggestions, here’s another idea:
Let’s get him a pet! He has never owned a pet. As we know with our children, pets teach essential life lessons: compassion and empathy; they instill a sense of responsibility. There is a well-established connection between those who can care for a pet and those who can care for people.
So, which pet should we choose? A puppy? A kitten? A boa constrictor?
Imagine, the President may even decide he likes having a pet. After all, what is more obedient than a well-trained dog, besides possibly the Cabinet? And what is more docile than a sweet kitten, other than plausibly the Supreme Court?
The President may even become more mellow with a pet afoot and less likely to slap tariffs on our allies, or attempt to annex our neighbors, or bully our Congress. (Realizing, of course, a bully requires active participation from the bullied to maintain his status.)
Maybe we should do both: get the President a pet and devise a travel plan for him. (Do you think we could possibly convince him to leave his phone at home?)
Let’s go for it! After all:
Travel far enough, you meet yourself. (David Mitchell)
And for our President, that would likely be the most profound discovery of all.
Amy Lockard is an Iowa resident who regularly contributes to regional newspapers and periodicals. She is working on the second of a four-book fictional series based on Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice."