Michigan’s U.S. Senate field set with candidates being certified for August primary ballot

LANSING, MI — Michigan’s top U.S. Senate candidates cleared the final hurdle before the August primary on Friday, with a state board confirming they had submitted the required number of valid signatures.

Michigan’s Board of State Canvassers voted to seat top Republican candidates Mike Rogers, Justin Amash and Sandy Pensler in the Aug. 6 primary. On the Democratic side, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin was endorsed.

Democratic groups challenged the signatures of the three Republican candidates, while actor Hill Harper – who is running in the Democratic primary – challenged Slotkin’s, but the state board ruled that all had qualified.

They are all vying for a seat vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow. A candidate must submit 15,000 valid signatures to qualify for the primary ballot, and they can submit up to 30,000 signatures to reach that number.

Qualifying for the primary ballot has become an obstacle for many Michigan campaigns in recent years. Several high-profile gubernatorial campaigns ended two years ago due to signature fraud, and earlier this month a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives was disqualified for the same reason.

A Democratic U.S. Senate candidate, Nasser Beydoun, was disqualified Friday after it emerged that the campaign address listed on the petition nomination signature sheets was a post office box and not a street address as required. Beydoun, a Dearborn businessman, was seen as a contender, but he can still challenge the decision in court.

Invalid signatures can be the result of a variety of issues, such as signers not being registered voters in the district or duplicate entries. In the past, some campaigns have been derailed by large numbers of invalid signatures because signature gatherers used illegal methods.