Michigan SOS Benson Once Warned Against Biased Vote Counters

“Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything” is the famous quote attributed to Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin. Officials in charge of elections have been the center of grave controversy in Arizona and Pennsylvania in recent years. In 2026, look no further than key battleground state Michigan, where the Democrat nominee for governor, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, also happens to be the person in charge of overseeing the election results.

The controversy over Benson’s dual role has raged for well over a year as it became apparent that she would be the likely Democrat flag-bearer for 2026. Benson, who has been dogged by embarrassing reports of her former employment at the thoroughly discredited Southern Poverty Law Center, has worked feverishly to downplay concerns over a Secretary of State being in charge of their own election.

“Michigan secretaries of state have a long history of simultaneously running for office while successfully administering Michigan’s elections in partnership with the Board of State Canvassers,” Benson declared in an official statement in May. “These processes largely reflect how the Bureau of Elections and I handled potential conflicts of interest during my reelection campaign in 2022. I share this letter with you now in the interest of transparency and to establish precedent of a public-facing firewall policy that other secretaries should adhere to and be held to.”

Benson in 2009: ‘One Person Could Change the Outcome’

In other words... trust me. Yet Benson did not always feel this way. In June 2009, as she mounted her first failed run for Secretary of State, she ominously warned of the inherent dangers of partisan vote counters, The Midwesterner news site reported Oct. 14.

“We had a Secretary of State, [Republican] Ken Blackwell in Ohio, making small decisions like not putting enough machines in Cleveland, putting too many machines in rural areas, and basically, again, with one position, one person using his office to alter the course of the election,” Benson said in a speech at the time, the outlet relates.

“Now he, like [Republican] Katherine Harris, was also not only the [Florida] Secretary of State but the co-chair of the [George W.] Bush campaign, which is a significant problem,” she added.

“And by the way, our Secretary of State, Terri Lynn Land, also at the time was the co-chair of the Bush campaign in 2004. But it was a significant problem because, again, we saw how one Secretary of State, one person, could implement policies that could change the course of the democracy and change the outcome of the election.”

Benson 17 years ago correctly highlighted a serious problem. It should go without saying just why she fails to see it as a major concern today. The issue has grown far more acute in the troubled 2020s as election overseers have gone from merely having a political orientation to displaying flagrant antipathy towards a particular candidate (Arizona) and highly disturbing direct connections to infamous election meddler and progressive globalist billionaire George Soros (Pennsylania).

Arizona Vote Counter Wanted to ‘Make Life Hell’ for Kari Lake

Maricopa County is the most populous county in Arizona. In 2022, its election overseer was County Recorder Stephen Richer. Richer is an outspoken Republican Never Trumper who in February of that year attended a conference in Washington, DC hosted by Principles First, an organization that placed a high priority on defeating Arizona GOP gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake.

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In 2023, Richer filed a defamation lawsuit against Lake after she accused him of rigging the election against her. Democrat Katie Hobbs won in a nailbiter of a race that was plagued by numerous election integrity allegations. Hobbs just so happened to serve as Arizona Secretary of State at the time, meaning she oversaw one of the most controversial elections in the US this decade, and the outcome had her declared the victor.

Richer’s lawsuit against Lake led to the startling admission that the Maricopa County Recorder had a strong personal dislike for the America First GOP candidate. In a June 2024 deposition, Richer admitted under oath that in March of 2023, just months after the 2022 election, he had told a friend of his desire to “make life hell for Kari.”

Note: This was a little more than four months after he oversaw the vote in Arizona’s largest country.

“Why would you want to make life hell for Kari Lake in March of 2023?” Lake attorney William Fischbach asked Richer. “I don’t remember,” he replied. ‘I don’t think she’s a real conservative.”

Soros and the Keystone State Election Overseers

And then there is Pennsylvania, which had two Democrat secretaries of state with outsized Soros ties overseeing and certifying hotly contested elections in 2020 and 2022.

It’s nothing short of stunning that more isn’t made of this.

In 2020, Pennsylvania Secretary of State Kathy Boockvar had two Soros-funded partisan organizations, VotingWorks and the Brennan Center for Justice, certify election results in the state. Upon leaving office, Boockvar promptly took a position on the advisory board of the Brennan Center.

Her successor was even more blatant. In 2022, acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman oversaw that year’s monumental midterm elections. When she left office, Chapman did not land a cushy board post at a Soros-backed activist organization. She was hired directly by his flagship Open Society Foundations operation itself.

“In this new role, Chapman will lead Open Society’s work to strengthen US democracy by shoring up and reforming democratic institutions, expanding and protecting voting rights, and building a multi-racial, pro-democracy majority,” a March 2023 OSF news release touted.

“Our country is at a critical inflection point with regard to safeguarding our democratic institutions,” Chapman was quoted as saying. “That is why I am thrilled to join Open Society Foundations’ team in supporting our national and state partners in leading a pro-democracy strategy.”

Note: This was a little more than four months after she ran Pennsylvania’s midterm elections.

And now Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is overseeing her own gubernatorial election in Michigan. The same Jocelyn Benson who worked for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has received major funding from George Soros over the years.

For the fourth major election cycle of the 2020s, electoral integrity is destined to be a hot-button topic in November.