DETROIT — U.S. House candidate Adam Hollier of Detroit says hundreds of challenges to his individual petition signatures made by U.S. Rep. Shri Thanedar are "baseless," saying the congressman acted in "bad faith" and with the "clear" attempt to disenfranchise Black voters across Michigan's 13th Congressional District.

Lawyers for Hollier, who is seeking to unseat Thanedar in the Democratic primary election, deemed the congressman's petition challenge "legally flawed," in part because he directed it to the wrong entity and made his complaint under the wrong part of state election law.

They argue in a brief submitted Tuesday to Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett that the majority of challenges alleging the signer isn't registered to vote are incorrect, and that the complaint overall fails to set forth which specific signatures are claimed to be invalid.

"At its core, Mr. Thanedar's challenge is a thinly disguised attempt at voter suppression to prevent the voters from casting their ballot for the candidates of their choosing," attorneys W. Alan Wilk and Melvin "Butch" Hollowell wrote as part of Hollier's legal response to the challenge.

Hollier's response does stipulate that certain signatures contained on nine pages of "supplemental" petitions were "likely" forged by a paid circulator, Londell Thomas of Harper Woods. Hollier has said he's disappointed this happened, and the campaign said it's in the process of reporting the suspected signature fraud to the Wayne County prosecutor.

But the campaign is urging officials not to toss all signatures or petitions certified by Thomas.

"Our forthright agreement that Londell Thomas likely forged supplemental petitions S-2 through S-10 does not mean that other aspects of Candidate Thanedar's complaint are valid," Hollier's lawyers wrote.

"Whatever conduct Mr. Thomas may have engaged in outside the bounds of his authority, it is also that he appears to have gathered valid petition signatures. These signers are actual Americans expressing their constitutional rights which should not be taken from them as Mr. Thanedar requests."

Indeed, Hollier's campaign says it reached out to a number voters whose names appeared on the non-supplemental petitions circulated by Thomas to confirm whether they signed, and many said they did so, including 29 who swore in affidavits to that effect, including one from the actor Hill Harper of Detroit, a candidate for U.S. Senate.

The Hollier campaign's lawyers also added that it can't represent "with certainty" how many signatures might have been invalid on the petitions that Thomas submitted, but they assert that sufficient valid signatures from voters in the district remain.

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