LANSING, Michigan — The fight over Michigan's electronic poll books is no longer a temporary pause. On Monday, November 2, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Michael J. Riordan issued a final ruling in McQueer v. Benson (Court of Claims No. 26-000172-MZ) holding that Administrative Rule 168.48 — the state rule that required local election clerks to delete electronic poll book (EPB) software and its files within seven days after an election is certified — is invalid, because it conflicts with Michigan election law. The ruling, delivered one day before Michigan votes in the November 3 general election, replaces the court's earlier temporary preservation order with a permanent injunction.
Source: Michigan Fair Elections Institute News
The rule at the centre of the case was filed by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's administration in October 2025. As written, it ordered that electronic poll book software and associated files 'must be deleted from all devices by the seventh day following the final canvass and certification of the election,' with narrow exceptions where a recount petition had been filed, a post-election audit was scheduled, or a court or the Secretary of State had stayed the deletion. In other words, the working digital record of who checked in to vote, and when, was scheduled for routine destruction about a week after each election was certified.
Why the court said the statute wins
"When an administrative rule conflicts with a statute, the statute controls," the opinion stated. Judge Riordan held that MCL 168.811 of the Michigan Election Law requires retention for 22 months of 'all election returns, including poll lists, statements, tally sheets ... and other returns made by the election inspectors of the several precincts,' and that electronic poll books qualify as such election returns. Crucially, the court said the EPBs must be preserved in their original electronic form — including their metadata, such as entry times, user identities, corrections and status flags.
The court rejected the Michigan Department of State's central defence: that poll book content is adequately preserved because data is uploaded to the Qualified Voter File (QVF) and printed in reports. "The EPB does not retain its content, context, or structure when uploaded into the QVF. ... Metadata is critical to understanding the EPB and the data within," Riordan wrote. A transfer that strips out the metadata, the court found, is not preservation of the record the statute protects.
A permanent injunction — and new orders for every clerk
Unlike the temporary restraining order issued in late October — which only paused the deletion rule for the November 3 election while the case continued, as Awaaz Punjab reported at the time — Monday's ruling decides the merits. The court granted a permanent injunction barring enforcement of Rule 168.48 statewide and directed Benson's office to issue new instructions to about 1,520 local clerks. Those instructions must require clerks to transfer EPB data from precinct laptops onto encrypted flash drives and store them securely for the full 22-month period, after which the data can be erased and the drives reused. The court described the added burden as minimal — at most about $100 per additional flash drive — and noted that retention protects audit rights under the Michigan Constitution.
The one claim the state won
The ruling was not a clean sweep. On a separate claim, the court sided with the state, holding that Rule 168.48 is not preempted by the federal 22-month retention requirement in 52 U.S.C. § 20701, the Civil Rights Act provision. The court found that EPBs, which are generated internally from the Qualified Voter File, do not fall under the federal statute's language covering records that 'come into [an election officer's] possession' from voters or outside sources. The deletion rule fell under Michigan's own statute, not federal law.
The case began in August 2026, when Michelle McQueer, the clerk of Bridgewater Township in Washtenaw County, sued Benson, Elections Director Jonathan Brater and the Department of State. McQueer said the rule put her in an impossible position: deleting the files risked violating federal retention requirements — potentially carrying up to a year in prison — while refusing to delete them risked Michigan penalties. She had sought guidance from state officials and received no response before filing suit as the August primary certification approached. The Republican National Committee and the Michigan Republican Party later intervened in the case, and the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest. Patrice Johnson, founder and chair of the Michigan Fair Elections Institute, said in a written statement: "We cannot fail to acknowledge the courage it took for Michelle McQueer, township clerk, to stand up to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson."
Source: Democracy Docket
Benson — the Democratic nominee for governor — can appeal. Until a higher court says otherwise, the deletion rule cannot be enforced and Michigan's poll book files from Tuesday's election must be transferred to encrypted flash drives and kept for 22 months. For voters, nothing about casting a ballot changes; what changes is how long the digital check-in record of the election survives for audits, recounts and public scrutiny.
For Michigan's voters — including the state's Punjabi and other immigrant communities concentrated around metro Detroit — the practical stakes are about trust in the count. Poll books are the front-door record of an election: they show who was checked in, where and at what time. Keeping that record intact for 22 months, in its original form, is what allows a recount or audit long after election night to test whether the paperwork of democracy matches its results.