LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Americans were told repeatedly in 2020 that there was no evidence of a coordinated national voter fraud effort. During September 2020 testimony before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray said the Bureau had not seen such a scheme and would aggressively investigate if it did.
Court challenges in Michigan followed. Lawsuits over absentee ballot counting at Detroit’s TCF Center (now Huntington Place) were rejected, with judges ruling the claims unsupported. A later federal lawsuit alleging fraudulent absentee ballots and improper voter registrations was also dismissed. Certification of Michigan’s election results moved forward.
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Yet questions never fully faded – particularly surrounding automatic voter registration (AVR), which is tied to driver’s license and state ID transactions.
The China intelligence report.
In July 2025, newly declassified FBI documents released publicly by Sen. Chuck Grassley revealed that a 2020 FBI Intelligence Information Report (IIR) alleged the Chinese government had produced “tens of thousands” of counterfeit U.S. driver’s licenses. The report suggested the IDs could have been used to facilitate fraudulent mail-in ballots for Joe Biden.
Internal FBI communications show the intelligence report was later recalled. According to headquarters, the decision came amid internal concerns – including a warning in one email that stated, “Again, the reporting will contradict Director Wray’s testimony” where he said there was no coordinated national fraud effort. Supporters of further review say the recall raises transparency questions. Critics note the IIR was raw intelligence – unevaluated and unverified.
To date, no court, audit, or law enforcement agency has confirmed that counterfeit Chinese driver’s licenses were used to cast ballots in Michigan or anywhere else.
Still, the allegation, and the lack of a full investigation into the matter, has fueled debate – especially in states like Michigan where driver’s license numbers are used in voter registration and absentee ballot verification.
Foreign influence fears.
In an interview on China in Focus, Michael Lucci, founder and CEO of State Armor, a group focused on countering foreign influence and protecting critical infrastructure, said he was not surprised by the allegations of Chinese election interference. “They interfere in our political system in a lot of different ways, from the local level to the state level to the federal level,” he said, arguing that foreign actors look for ways to exploit the openness of U.S. elections to “break it.”
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Lucci said the allegations center on producing counterfeit driver’s licenses using the personal information of real Americans, then allegedly using Chinese nationals or CCP sympathizers in the U.S. to request absentee ballots and cast votes in those citizens’ names. If carried out at the scale described – “tens or hundreds of thousands,” he said – it would be “egregious.”
Michigan’s driver’s license spike.
At the same time, Michigan saw a dramatic jump in licensed drivers between 2020 and 2021 – nearly 956,000 additional licenses, according to Federal Highway Administration data. Nationally, 2021 recorded the largest single-year increase in licensed drivers since federal tracking began in 1949 with an increase of 4,585,995 driver’s licenses (possible voters) across all 50 states.
Election-integrity advocates argue that such a spike, combined with AVR, creates vulnerabilities if fraudulent or ineligible records enter the system. They point to concerns about so-called “ghost voters” – inactive, deceased, or relocated individuals who may remain listed in the Qualified Voter File (QVF).
Other election officials and media outlets counter that the increase likely reflected pandemic backlogs, as Secretary of State offices were closed or operating at limited capacity in 2020. They also maintain that Michigan’s QVF undergoes regular maintenance and cross-checks to prevent improper registrations. Courts have dismissed multiple lawsuits alleging systemic roll maintenance failures against Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.
Pushback on pandemic explanation.
However, not everyone is convinced that the huge spike in driver’s licenses can be explained away by delays caused by the pandemic. Michigan News Source spoke recently with Michigan members of the Election Integrity Fund and Force (EIF), an organization active in election-integrity advocacy and recount efforts, about their concerns surrounding the 2020 election in Michigan and they asked, “Where did these people come from? Are they citizens? Are they even ‘real’ people? New driver’s licenses to this magnitude far exceeds year over year population growth. The increased number of driver’s licenses with automatic voter registration enables the opportunity for nefarious activity in Michigan.”
Lingering questions.
The FBI intelligence report alleged that the alleged China-produced counterfeit licenses could have included real names and ID numbers – potentially harvested from online sources including TikTok – making detection more difficult. If true and successfully inserted into voter systems, critics argue such a scheme could complicate ballot authentication in states reliant on driver’s license verification.
What remains is a clash between official assurances and persistent skepticism. For some Michigan voters, the combination of a recalled FBI intelligence report, a historic spike in driver’s licenses, and unresolved trust concerns keeps the debate alive — not only about 2020, but about how future elections are safeguarded.
