Jocelyn Benson

Jocelyn Benson (born October 22, 1977) is an American academic administrator and politician serving as the 43rd Secretary of State of Michigan since 2019.

A member of the Democratic Party, she is a former dean of Wayne State University Law School, a co-founder of the Military Spouses of Michigan, and a board member of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality.

Benson is the author of State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process.

This victory made her the first Democrat to hold the office since 1995.

She was reelected in 2022, defeating Republican Kristina Karamo by a margin of 14 percentage points, setting a record for the largest margin and vote share among statewide candidates that year.

She has gained national prominence for her role as Michigan's Secretary of State.

During her tenure, she has implemented significant election and customer service reforms.

Benson graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College in 1999, where she founded the now-annual Women in American Political Activism conference and was the first student to be elected to serve in the governing body for the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts.

She subsequently earned her master's in sociology as a Marshall Scholar at Magdalen College, Oxford, conducting research into the sociological implications of white supremacy and neo-Nazism.

Prior to attending law school, Benson also lived in Montgomery, Alabama, where she worked for the Southern Poverty Law Center as an investigative journalist, researching white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations.

Benson has also worked as a summer associate for voting rights and election law for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and as a legal assistant to Nina Totenberg at National Public Radio.

Benson received her JD from Harvard Law School, where she was a general editor of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

From 2002 to 2004, she served as the Voting Rights Policy Coordinator of the Harvard Civil Rights Project, a non-profit organization that sought to link academic research to civil rights advocacy efforts, where she worked on the passage of the federal Help America Vote Act.

Upon graduation from Harvard Law, Benson moved to Detroit to serve as a law clerk to the Honorable Damon J. Keith on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit.

Benson developed and supervised three statewide nonpartisan election protection efforts in Michigan in 2007, 2008 and 2012.

In 2007, Benson worked with several groups to successfully keep a Secretary of State branch office open in Buena Vista Township, Michigan.

The U.S. Department of Justice, under then-President George W. Bush, concluded that the closure of the office would violate the Voting Rights Act.

During the 2008 election, she was called to testify before the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, where she called on Secretary Terri Lynn Land to ban the use of foreclosure lists to challenge voters' eligibility on Election Day.

She is a frequent commentator on voting rights and election law on local news and radio broadcasts.

In March 2010, Benson published her first book, State Secretaries of State: Guardians of the Democratic Process.

The book highlights best practices of secretaries of state from throughout the country and seeks to inform voters about how secretaries of state across the political spectrum can work to advance democracy and election reform.

After working with secretaries of state from around the country while researching the book, she was inspired to run for the office in her resident state of Michigan.

She lost to Republican candidate Ruth Johnson by a margin of 51 percent to 45 percent.

In 2011, Benson was selected to serve with retired U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the national board of directors of iCivics, Inc., a nonprofit created by Justice O'Connor to improve civics education throughout the country.

In addition to serving as an appointed member of the American Bar Association's Standing Committee on Election Law, she is also the founder and current director of the Michigan Center for Election Law, which hosts projects that support transparency and integrity in elections.

In 2011, the center hosted Michigan's first "Citizens' Redistricting Competition", providing an opportunity for Michigan citizens to access software and draw their own redistricting maps for the state.

Benson was appointed dean of Wayne State Law School in December 2012 at the age of 35, becoming the youngest woman to lead a top 100 law school in United States history.

As dean she established two "marquee" programs: the Levin Center at Wayne Law, chaired by former United States Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), and the Program on Entrepreneurship and Business Law, which helps aspiring business professionals in underserved communities participate in the economic revival of Detroit.

Prior to being appointed Dean in 2012, Benson was the associate director of the Damon J. Keith Center for Civil Rights, where she started the Michigan Allies Project, an effort designed to track hate incidents throughout Michigan and provide legal support for victims.

In 2012, Benson joined with three military spouses and family members in Michigan to create Military Spouses of Michigan, a network dedicated to providing support and services to military family members and veterans in Michigan.

In January 2013, the group was selected to represent the state of Michigan in the Presidential Inaugural Parade, the only group of military spouses to receive that honor.

From 2016 to 2018 Benson served as CEO of the Ross Initiative in Sports for Equality (RISE).

On October 27, 2017, Benson announced her second candidacy for Michigan Secretary of State.

In 2018, Benson was elected as the Secretary of State in Michigan, securing the position with an 8.9 percentage point margin over Republican Mary Treder Lang.

As a leading advocate for American elections since 2020, Benson streamlined registration, maintained accurate voter ID, and facilitated voting.

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she initiated the early distribution of absentee ballots, spearheaded a campaign to train new poll workers, and mailed absentee voter applications to all 7.7 million registered Michigan voters.

Benson played a pivotal role in the 2020 presidential election, overseeing a historic turnout and countering baseless fraud allegations.

She faced intense criticism from then-President Donald Trump, who targeted her mailing effort, calling her a "rogue Secretary of State."

Threats, including armed demonstrators outside her home and death threats, persisted.

She received the Presidential Citizens Medal in January 2023, for her "undaunted and unflinching" work in performing "exemplary public service to advance free and fair elections."