During the Secretary of State debate on Oct. 8, Republican candidate Anthony Forlini said that if he is elected on Nov. 3, he will “bring transparency” to future Michigan elections by allowing the Trump administration to take an active and present role in monitoring them.
“The more eyes, the better. I want honesty, I want true elections,” Forlini said while on the debate stage at the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. The Macomb County Clerk added that he welcomes the administration’s attempts to obtain state voter rolls and proposals to send poll watchers to oversee future voting processes at Michigan polling places.
“As long as it’s according to Michigan law, the standards we have, and making sure our local clerks and whatnot are doing the job right, I’ve got no problem with that,” Forlini said.
However, some Michiganders remain unconvinced that Forlini has voters’ best interests at heart, given his stance on election integrity in recent years and continued support for the Trump administration’s questioning of the fairness of local elections nationwide.
Watch: This Secretary of State candidate wants Trump and January 6 rioters handling Michigan ballots
Forlini was one of several Michigan lawmakers who promoted conspiracy theories about widespread voter fraud during the 2020 US presidential election. Claims from these “election deniers” have been debunked in several studies, including an investigation by the Associated Press that identified fewer than 500 potential cases of voter fraud amongst the 25 million votes that were cast across six battleground states, like Michigan, in the 2020 presidential election.
Watch: 5 things to know about Michigan’s secretary of state race
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has called these accusations, and other accusations by Forlini, reckless. In fact, a Department of State review found that only 16 of the 5.7 million ballots Michiganders cast in the 2024 election were submitted by noncitizens.
But that hasn’t stopped Forlini from investigating further. Earlier this year, his office in Macomb claimed to find 15 noncitizens on the county’s voter rolls by comparing them with non-juror questionnaires, which have been shown to be poor criteria for eliminating voters from eligible voter lists—and have led to tens of thousands of citizens incorrectly having their voting rights stripped.
While the state’s Bureau of Elections investigated these claims and found that, at most, four voters may have been noncitizens, preliminary investigations were inconclusive. However, Forlini has since appeared on several radio shows and podcasts this year, including one with Tudor Dixon—an election denier who ran and lost the 2022 governor race to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—to discuss the need for voter reform, including a national citizenship verification database to “ensure only eligible voters cast ballots.”
Forlini has also continued to defend hiring social media influencer Genevieve Peters, a January 6 rioter who urged insurrectionists to “storm the gates” of the US Capitol Building, to recruit and train poll workers for future elections. In 2020, Peters also attended a Lansing rally alongside the Proud Boys, an organization with a long history of political violence, including at the January 6 election, and livestreamed a “Stop the Steal” rally contesting the results of that year’s US presidential election outside Benson’s home.
When asked to explain this hiring decision during the debate on Oct. 8, Forlini said he “hires personalities; I don’t hire based on their political beliefs.”
Related: Anthony Forlini’s extremist tendencies could harm future Michigan elections
In the race for Michigan’s next secretary of state, Forlini will face Democratic candidate Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II during the general election on Nov. 3. To check your voter registration, see your ballot, or find your polling location, go to gandernewsroom.com/voter-registration.
Related: These Michigan election deniers could be in office when 2028 votes are counted
