COA 380984 ARIEL DRISSMAN V MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF STATE Opinion - Per Curiam - Unpublished 6/4/2026

If this opinion indicates that it is “FOR PUBLICATION,” it is subject to
revision until final publication in the Michigan Appeals Reports.
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S T A T E O F M I C H I G A N
C O U R T O F A P P E A L S
ARIEL DRISSMAN,
Plaintiff,
FOR PUBLICATION
June 4, 2026
3:55 PM
V No. 380984
MICHIGAN DEPARTMENT OF STATE,
Defendant.
Before: TREBILCOCK, P.J., and BORRELLO and M. J. Kelly, JJ.
TREBILCOCK, P.J.
This original action for mandamus and declaratory relief involves plaintiff Ariel
Drissman’s nominating petitions filed to be placed on the ballot for the upcoming primary election.
He seeks relief here after the Secretary of State denied his request to review a determination by
the Oakland County Clerk that he failed to submit at least 4,000 valid signatures required to place
his name on the ballot. The relief he seeks is neither required nor permitted under Michigan
Election Law, MCL 168.1, et seq., and we, therefore, deny the complaint.
I. PERTINENT FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY
Plaintiff is a candidate for an open position to serve as an Oakland County Probate Court
Judge. He filed with the Oakland County Clerk nominating petitions containing 4,716
signatures—716 more than the 4,000-signature threshold set forth in MCL 168.544f relative to
Oakland County’s population—to be placed on the August 2026 primary ballot as a judicial
nonincumbent. The Oakland County Clerk concluded that only 3,862 of those signatures were
valid and therefore declared his petitions “insufficient.”
He then submitted a written request to the Secretary of State to review the Clerk’s decision
as permitted by MCL 168.552(6). That statute provides that “[a] person feeling aggrieved by a
determination made by the county clerk may have the determination reviewed by the secretary of
state by filing a written request with the secretary of state within 3 days after the official declaration
of the county clerk . . . .” Beginning five days after the three-day window of review closed,
plaintiff filed 111 voter statements attesting that they personally signed the petition on dates certain
and verifying their signatures as “genuine.”

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In a letter dated May 29, 2026, the Director of the Bureau of Elections, Jonathan Brater,
rejected plaintiff’s request for review for lack of merit. See MCL 168.32(1). Notably, Brater
declined to consider the tardy-voter statements: “The signed voter statements were submitted to
the Department between May 13 and May 22, after the appeal deadline of May 8.
MCL 168.552(6). Because the statements were not received by the appeal deadline, the
Department did not consider them in processing your appeal.” Instead, Brater reviewed the Clerk’s
determination regarding the genuineness of signatures by comparison to signatures in the qualified
voter file. As part of that review, he concluded that the Oakland County Clerk improperly struck
23 signatures, leaving plaintiff still 115 signatures short. For these and other reasons not pertinent
to resolving this action, Brater rejected plaintiff’s request for review and upheld the Oakland
County Clerk’s determination that plaintiff failed to submit the requisite 4,000 signatures for his
petitions.
Plaintiff then commenced this original action under MCL 600.310 and MCR 3.305(A)(1).
Contemporaneously, he filed motions to expedite and for immediate consideration, seeking a
decision by Friday, June 5, 2026, which is the deadline for the Secretary of State to certify the
candidates eligible to appear on the August 2026 primary ballot. Plaintiff seeks a writ of
mandamus to compel defendant1 to certify him as a candidate for Probate Court Judge in Oakland
County. Defendant has timely answered, and we granted plaintiff’s motion to file a reply brief
and accepted his reply brief as filed.
II. ANALYSIS
MCL 168.552 sets forth the procedures for investigating and resolving disputes regarding
nominating petitions. Johnson v Bd of State Canvassers, 341 Mich App 671, 686; 991 NW2d 840
(2022). Under MCL 168.552(3), a County Clerk may, on his or her own initiative, examine
petitions and commence an investigation if the Clerk is “in doubt as to the validity of the
registration or genuineness of the signature of the circulator or persons signing or purported to
have signed the petitions.” Such examination may include comparing the signatures to the
“digitized signatures in the qualified voter file.” MCL 168.552(3). See also MCL 168.552(13)
(detailing the use of the qualified voter file to determine the validity and genuineness of
signatures). “Upon the completion of the investigation or examination, the county clerk shall
immediately make an official declaration of the sufficiency or insufficiency of nominating
petitions . . . .” MCL 168.552(6). And as set forth, the statute provides for review by the Secretary
of State if an aggrieved person files a written request “within 3 days.” MCL 168.552(6).
Plaintiff requests in this litigation that we issue a writ of mandamus, which is itself an
exceptional ask. By issuing such a writ, a court “compel[s] a public officer to perform a clear legal
duty,” including those performed by election officials. Barrow v Wayne Co Bd of Canvassers, 341
Mich App 473, 484; 991 NW2d 610 (2022). “A ‘clear legal right’ is a right that is ‘clearly founded
1 Plaintiff identifies the defendant as the Michigan Department of State. However, “the proper
defendant in an action for a writ of mandamus is the officer who has the duty of performance.”
Grabow v Macomb Twp, 270 Mich App 222, 231 n 4; 714 NW2d 674 (2006). In this case, plaintiff
identifies the Secretary of State as the officer with a duty to certify the names of candidates for the
ballots under MCL 168.552(14).

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in, or granted by, law; a right which is inferable as a matter of law from uncontroverted facts
regardless of the difficulty of the legal question to be decided.’ ” Neilson v Bd of State Canvassers,
___ Mich App ___, ___; ___ NW3d ___ (2024) (Docket No. 371256); slip op at 4 (quotation
marks and citation omitted). To secure the “extraordinary remedy that is mandamus relief,” a
plaintiff has the burden to establish four things: “(1) the plaintiff has a clear legal right to the
performance of the duty sought to be compelled, (2) the defendant has a clear legal duty to perform
such act, (3) the act is ministerial in nature such that it involves no discretion or judgment, and (4)
the plaintiff has no other adequate legal or equitable remedy.” Id. (quotation marks and citation
omitted).
In his complaint and supporting brief, plaintiff argues that (a) defendant erred by “closing
the record” and thus not considering the 111 voter statements; (b) 27 signatures should be
rehabilitated for various reasons related to the voters’ addresses or because they signed a name on
the petition that was a diminutive or alternate form of the voters’ legal names; (c) 10 signatures
were improperly disqualified for invalid dates that are merely scrivener’s errors; and (d) as to the
duplicates, each internal-duplicate voter should be counted once and that he should thus receive
53 additional signatures. In his view, defendant violated a clear legal duty by failing to verify his
petitions and place his name on the ballot. We cannot agree. Plaintiff is not entitled to writ of
mandamus because he failed to carry his burden to establish that he is entitled to the extraordinary
relief he seeks. See Johnson, 341 Mich App at 684-685.
Voter Statements. We first address plaintiff’s attempt to rehabilitate 111 signatures with
the after-the-fact voter statements. MCL 168.552(6) requires the Secretary of State to review the
county clerk’s determination, but that statute does not authorize a carte blanche investigation of
signatures “as a candidate sees fit.” Neilson, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 5. As this Court
noted in Neilson, Michigan Election Law “does not afford a candidate unlimited opportunities to
rehabilitate ‘doubtful’ signatures . . . .” Id. This is so, because how to conduct a review of petition
signatures is a matter of discretion, id. at ___; slip op at 5-6; and MCL 168.552(13) expressly
allowed the Oakland County Clerk to use the qualified voter file to determine the genuineness of
signatures. Nor is there anything in the statute that required defendant to consider documents
submitted by plaintiff after the deadline for him to seek review. See Neilson, ___ Mich App at
___; slip op at 5.2 Plaintiff’s claim that defendant violated a clear legal duty by failing to consider
the voter statements filed after the deadline belies the broad discretionary authority granted to the
Oakland County Clerk to conduct its mandatory investigation. See id. at ___; slip op at 5-6. For
this same reason, plaintiff’s assertion that reviewing the voter statements is a ministerial task fails.
See id. at ___; slip op at 6. Consequently, plaintiff does not show that he was entitled to review
of the voter statements, and he has not shown that defendant owed a clear legal duty to count the
2 In his reply brief here, plaintiff submitted to us eight additional voter statements that he did not
provide to defendant during its review process. Assuming these records are properly before us,
they do not advance plaintiff’s arguments—as set forth in text, the statute did not require defendant
to review any of the belatedly filed voter statements, and we additionally fail to see how defendant
violated a clear legal duty on the basis of statements plaintiff never submitted to defendant.

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rejected signatures. See McCoy v Berrien Co Clerk, 348 Mich App 602, 618; 19 NW3d 897
(2023).
Other signatures. Plaintiff raises arguments involving an additional 90 signatures. We
would ordinarily not consider them because they are not enough to overcome plaintiff’s 115
signature deficit. But given the expediated nature of this case, we do so in summary fashion and
find them without merit based on the plain language of the statute and our controlling precedent.
Plaintiff was not entitled to have 53 initial signatures accepted for voters who signed his petition
twice. See id. at 621-622 (“[S]ignatures appearing twice or more upon the same or several sections
of a petition should be rejected.”) (quotation marks and citation omitted). As to 27 other
signatures, plaintiff raises arguments regarding addresses and voters’ names. For those voters who
moved to a different city or township and thus were not registered to vote in the city or township
designated on the petition, their signatures are presumptively invalid. See MCL 168.552(13).
More generally, plaintiff makes factual allegations regarding addresses and voters’ names, but he
failed to provide this Court with sufficient record evidence to support his allegations. See Holliday
v Bd of State Canvassers, ___ Mich App ___, ___; ___ NW3d ___ (2024) (Docket No. 372267);
slip op at 7 (recognizing a plaintiff’s burden to produce sufficient record evidence to support a
request for mandamus). From the available evidence, it is not apparent that plaintiff provided
defendant with adequate information to rehabilitate the signatures at issue, and when the facts are
not clear, mandamus cannot lie. See Neilson, ___ Mich App at ___; slip op at 6. Lastly, plaintiff
identifies 10 signatures rejected for issues related to dates. See MCL 168.544c(2) and (5). He
acknowledges that the dates were “sloppy,” difficult to read, or in some cases incorrect, but he
asserts that the dates should be read to allow for poor handwriting and human error in writing the
wrong year. Contrary to plaintiff’s arguments, defendant “was not required to count signatures
with dates that could not be properly verified.” See McCoy, 348 Mich App at 620-621.
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In sum, plaintiff has not established that defendant violated a clear legal duty in carrying
out its review under MCL 168.552(6). Absent the requisite number of signatures, plaintiff cannot
establish that defendant owed a clear legal duty to certify plaintiff’s name to appear on the primary
ballot. He is thus not entitled to mandamus relief. Derivatively, we also dismiss for lack of
jurisdiction his meritless request for declaratory relief. See Musselman v Governor of Michigan,
200 Mich App 656, 667; 505 NW2d 288 (1993); see also O’Connell v Dir of Elections, 316 Mich
App 91, 102-103 n 3; 891 NW2d 240 (2016).
We end with an observation. The currently enacted legislative scheme seemingly does not
permit a candidate to rehabilitate signatures through submission of affidavits because of the
discretionary enforcement of the filing deadline as a deadline to submit supporting documentation
and the statutory mandate that signatures be compared solely through use of the qualified voter
file. These are policy choices our Legislature has made and ones we must enforce. We question,
however, whether that decision rightly limits review of legitimate ballot-access considerations for
those aspiring to hold public office.

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III. CONCLUSION
For these reasons, we deny plaintiff’s complaint. This constitutes our final judgment in
this case, see MCR 7.215(E)(1), which shall have immediate effect pursuant to MCR 7.215(F)(2).
No taxable costs are awarded under MCR 7.219(A), as matters of significant public interest are
involved.
/s/ Christopher M. Trebilcock
/s/ Stephen L. Borrello
/s/ Michael J. Kelly

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