The Justice Department is asking for “all ballots” from the Detroit area’s 2024 election, threatening potential legal action if thousands of ballots and election records are not turned over.
Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon asked Wayne County clerk Cathy Garrett in an April 14 letter to produce “all ballots (including absentee and provisional), ballot receipts, and ballot envelopes” from the November 2024 federal election.
Dhillon cited a “history of fraud convictions and other allegations” in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, in seeking about 865,000 ballots and hundreds of thousands of other election records that include, “among other things, voting registration records, poll lists, applications for absentee ballots, ballot envelopes, tally sheets, computer programs used to tabulate votes, as well as the ballots themselves.”
(Video: CBS Detroit)
“Please produce these records within fourteen ( 14) days from the receipt of this letter,” Dhillon wrote. “Failure to timely produce the requested records may result in the United States seeking a court order for production of such records.”
The letter was released by Michigan’s Democratic leaders on Sunday, with Attorney General Dana Nessel pledging to fight against “any attempt to interfere in Michigan’s elections.”
“Once again, President Trump is weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to sabotage our democratic process and turn it into his own personal agency to interfere in state elections,” Nessel said in a statement. “This request is as absurd as it is baseless.”
In a letter to Dhillon, Nessel claimed the DOJ request was directed to the wrong office since 43 municipal clerks, not the Wayne County clerk, hold the ballots. She also warned that an investigation will be “an unwarranted intrusion into Michigan elections,” especially ahead of the state’s Aug. 2 primary.
“Any form of federal interference in Michigan’s elections, including any attempt to seize election records, will be closely scrutinized,” Nessel said.
Here @theJusticeDept, ensuring election integrity is a paramount duty.
Many states fail to clean noncitizen & deceased people from their voter rolls, and under my leadership, @CivilRights will continue working to ensure that ONLY eligible American citizens vote in our elections!… pic.twitter.com/vmBNcLJSCy
— AAGHarmeetDhillon (@AAGDhillon) April 19, 2026
“I’ve requested the voter rolls from all states and the District of Columbia,” Dhillon said on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” with Maria Bartiromo. “About a third of the states have voluntarily complied with us or reached settlements with us, and we’ve run some of those records.
“I’m suing 29 states and the District of Columbia for their refusal to give us the voter rolls to which the attorney general or the acting attorney general is entitled under the Civil Rights Act of 1960. We’re doing that to make sure that states are in compliance,” she said.
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida. Powers also contributes to BizPac Review.
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