PURGING ROLLS

Starting with the Trump loss in the 2020 election, the former prez and a number of Republicans took up the cry that the results were rigged, spurring a movement to challenge at the offices of local clerks the rolls of those registered to vote. An organized effort, aptly named Soles to the Polls, was created to challenge voter rolls across the country, including in Michigan. Not much has been heard locally about this effort in the last year except in some isolated incidents in Oakland County in places like Waterford Township and a couple of other communities. We reached out to a number clerks since the August primary to see if challenges were still taking place. Bloomfield Township Clerk Martin Brook said that he has occasionally gotten phone calls on the topic but nothing in terms of voter challenges for the most part since 2022. Bloomfield Hills Clerk Amy Burton said there had been some challenges so we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and learned that local resident William Cabrera filed formal challenges to 48 registered voters. We were not able to learn much about Cabrera either through online research or conversations with regulars in both parties. Over in Birmingham, we also filed an FOIA request with city clerk Alexandria Bingham for the name of anyone who had challenged registered voters and how many challenges they filed. The city’s response? Resident Dulce Fuller filed a challenge of 81 persons on the voting rolls. Dulce Fuller has been active with the conservative (but generally respected) Mackinac Center and has been a member of the Southeast Michigan Committee of The Heritage Foundation, the hard-right conservative national group and think tank that has had considerable influence in the White House beginning with the administration of President Ronald Reagan. Of late the group has been at the center of the controversy over the development of the Project 2025 900-page document supposedly designed as a battle strategy for Donald Trump should he win in November. As for any voter roll challenge, local clerks are following state and federal laws and procedures so it’s not like names are removed from the rolls instantly.