certainly are recognized causes of action at common law, although they are distinct causes of action that are addressed to different problems. “[T]o obtain a writ of mandamus, the plaintiff must have a clear legal right to the performance of the specific duty sought to be compelled and the defendants must have a clear legal duty to perform the same.” State Bd of Ed v Houghton Lake Community Sch, 430 Mich 658, 666 (1988). Quo warranto, by contrast, is “the only way to try titles to office finally and conclusively … .” Lindquist v Lindholm, 258 Mich 152, 154 (1932). Combining them makes it unclear what petitioners are asking this Court to do—command a public officer to perform a legal duty (and if so, which officer, and what duty?), or test title to office?[1] I believe this confusion is reflected in the fact that Justices Viviano and Zahra focus on the constitutional right to an audit that the petitioners do not actually ask for in their prayer for relief. Rather, the prayer for relief asks for a variety of essentially interim steps—taking control of ballots, segregating ballots the petitioners believe were unlawful, enjoining officials from taking action predicated on the vote counts—but does not ask for any actual electoral outcome to be changed. This only begins the problems with this proceeding.
Next, there is a problem of jurisdiction. There has, admittedly, never been litigation like this before in Michigan, so we have no precedents we can draw upon as a definitive resolution. However, the face of petitioners’ complaint strongly suggests there is a jurisdictional problem. The gist of petitioners’ complaint is that they are unsatisfied with the recent decision of the Board of State Canvassers to declare a winner in the election for presidential electors in Michigan. But this Court has no apparent jurisdiction to review this decision. As noted, the canvassing process is not the time to allege that an election was marred with fraud. Petitioners allege that sections of the Michigan Election Law, like MCL 168.479 and MCL 168.878, allow for decisions of the Board of State Canvassers to be challenged by a mandamus action in the Michigan Supreme Court. But these sections appear to be inapplicable—MCL 168.479 is in the chapter on initiative and referendum, where the responsibilities of the Board of State Canvassers are far more involved than merely tabulating votes, and MCL 168.878 is in the chapter on recounts, which is also not implicated here. Even if either statute were applicable here, there is no theory that the petitioners have put forward suggesting that the Board of State Canvassers failed to perform a legal duty it was obliged to perform. Instead, as noted by Justice Viviano, in this context the role of the canvassing board is ministerial, with no function other than to tabulate the votes cast and determine which candidate (or candidates) received the most votes. To the extent that petitioners are trying to revisit the determination of the Board of State Canvassers, it appears they cannot, at least absent the unlikely scenario of the board simply having performed its computations incorrectly, which is not alleged here.
- ↑ Notably, none of the named defendants are alleged to be usurpers to any office, which indicates that plaintiffs have not satisfied the pleading requirements for a quo warranto action under MCL 600.4505(1).
