State rejects challenges to Abdul El-Sayed's eligibility to run for governor

LANSING – The state Bureau of Elections rejected on Wednesday four challenges to the eligibility of Abdul El-Sayed to run for governor.

“The official state Qualified Voter File record for Dr. El-Sayed demonstrates that he has been continuously registered to vote in this state since 2003,” the state said in a letter to Shri Thanedar, a Democrat from Pittsfield Township, who also is running for governor. “The Bureau must reject your concerns as to his eligibility."

Thanedar and three other Michigan voters filed challenges to El-Sayed’s candidacy because the former Detroit health department director lived in New York from 2013-15 while he went to school and taught at Columbia University. He changed his Michigan driver’s license to a New York license and voted in New York during that time.

Because of the change of driver’s license, the Michigan Secretary of State put El-Sayed’s voter registration on a challenged status and if he had attempted to vote in the state, his ballot would have been challenged.

While he didn't vote in Michigan between 2013 and 2016, he never lost his voter's registration, the bureau determined. And El-Sayed, a Shelby Township Democrat, said he maintained an apartment in Michigan the entire time he lived in New York.

“As we have always maintained, Abdul is 100% eligible to be Governor of Michigan. He’s been a registered voter in Michigan since he was 18 years old and has maintained continuous residence in Michigan since he was a child," said El-Sayed's campaign spokesman Adam Joseph in a statement. "As we expected, the Secretary of State has rejected this baseless political attack in an unprecedented confirmation of Abdul's eligibility to serve as governor in his state."

The state constitution states that in order to be eligible to run for governor, a candidate has to have been a registered voter in the state for the four years prior to the election.

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El-Sayed tried to get the state Court of Claims to clear up the issue, filing a lawsuit against the Secretary of State, but the SOS replied that it was premature to file a lawsuit because no one had filed a challenge to his candidacy. That changed with the challenges from Thanedar and the other voters.

And that lawsuit is still pending in the Court of Claims. In a brief filed Wednesday with the court, the elections bureau said, “The Bureau found no cause to question (El-Sayed’s) eligibility on the basis that he surrendered his license.”

Thanedar said he was glad the matter had been cleared up.

“We are thankful the Secretary of State's office reviewed this matter and look forward to an open and vigorous debate on how we can move our state forward and help working families rise up," he said in a statement.

That doesn’t mean that El-Sayed is totally out of the woods. The state is still in the process of certifying the signatures on petitions turned in by the candidates. Gubernatorial candidates must turn in between 15,000 and 30,000 signatures from valid registered voters. No one challenged El-Sayed’s petitions, “but the Board of State Canvassers has not yet declared Plaintiff’s nominating petition sufficient,” the Secretary of State said in its brief to the court.

El-Sayed, however, has challenged the signatures turned in by Thanedar, saying they are riddled with errors and insufficient to qualify for the ballot. That also will be determined by the Bureau of Elections by the end of this month.

Contact Kathleen Gray: 313-223-4430, kgray99@freepress.com or on Twitter @michpoligal