Oakland County Republican Party

Oakland County Republican Party Our mission is to elect Republicans to all levels of government, from local school boards and county commissioners to all state, and federal offices.
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The Oakland County Republican Party represents at the local level, providing grass roots support for the election of national and statewide candidates.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASEAugust 31, 2026OCRP FILES 115 CAMPAIGN FINANCE COMPLAINTS, FLAGS ACTBLUE CONNECTIONParty points to ...
08/31/2026

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 31, 2026

OCRP FILES 115 CAMPAIGN FINANCE COMPLAINTS, FLAGS ACTBLUE CONNECTION

Party points to the sheer number of campaigns involved — and to mounting national scrutiny of ActBlue, the donation processing platform named in many of the complaints — as reasons the Bureau of Elections should look deeper.

BLOOMFIELD HILLS, MICH. — The Oakland County Republican Party (OCRP) announced today that it has filed 115 formal campaign finance complaints with the Michigan Bureau of Elections, alleging that 115 Democrat candidates and officeholders are running campaign websites and/or online donation pages that omit the disclosure statement required by law. The complaints, filed this morning, were submitted to the Bureau under the Michigan Campaign Finance Act (MCFA), MCL 169.201 et seq.

"Democrats love to lecture everyone else about protecting democracy, yet 115 of their own candidates and officeholders failed to include the most basic disclosures required by Michigan law."
— Vance Patrick, Chairman, Oakland County Republican Party

TOPLINE SUMMARY

OCRP's review found that all 115 respondents' campaign websites and/or donation pages lacked a compliant "Paid for by [Committee Name], [Address]" disclaimer. The 115 complaints span:

- 17 candidates for Michigan State Senate
- 70 candidates for Michigan State House of Representatives
- 10 candidates for local office (mayor, city council, and township trustee/supervisor)
- 11 candidates for local school board seats
- 3 candidates for local library boards
- 3 candidates for university governing boards (Wayne State University Board of Governors, University of Michigan Board of Regents)
- 1 candidate for the Michigan State Board of Education

Of the 115 respondents, 91 had an ActBlue-hosted donation page among the pages reviewed.

THE LAW

MCL 169.247(1) requires that campaign material — including campaign websites and online donation pages, which the Michigan Bureau of Elections has already confirmed are covered by the statute (Golden v. Yahkind, Bureau of Elections Complaint No. 24-123, 2024) — carry a clear, self-contained "Paid for by" statement identifying the name and address of the committee paying for it. A statement that gives a committee's name but not its address, or the reverse, does not satisfy the law.

A violation of MCL 169.247 is a misdemeanor — punishable by a fine of up to $1,000, up to 93 days in jail, or both — if the Bureau finds the respondent knowingly violated the disclosure requirement under MCL 169.247(6). Whether any of these 115 omissions were knowing — and how many — is exactly the question the Bureau needs to investigate. It is not something OCRP, or the campaigns themselves, can resolve by assertion.

THE ACTBLUE CONNECTION

OCRP is not asking the Bureau to assume the worst about any single candidate. It is asking the Bureau to take seriously what 115 simultaneous, near-identical omissions look like, in the context of two things happening at the same time nationally:

- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against ActBlue on April 20, 2026, alleging the platform misrepresented its donor-verification safeguards and processed donations that were fraudulent or of foreign origin, in violation of Texas deceptive-practices law.

- A joint interim staff report from three U.S. House committees (Administration, Judiciary, and Oversight and Government Reform), titled "Fraud on ActBlue, Part II: Illicit Foreign Donations and a Cover-Up," alleges ActBlue accepted donations traced to Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and Colombia, that its entire legal and compliance team departed within four months of the 2024 election, and that five ActBlue employees invoked Fifth Amendment protections a combined 146 times when deposed about the platform's fraud-prevention practices.

Patrick said the sheer scale of the pattern — and its overlap with a platform under a growing cloud nationally — is what turns this from a compliance footnote into a case the Bureau cannot wave off.

"One omission might be carelessness. One hundred fifteen is a systemic failure. When 91 of those campaigns are also raising money through ActBlue, without the proper disclosure, while that platform faces a state lawsuit and a congressional investigation over donor verification, there must be an investigation. The Bureau of Elections must demonstrate that they are not going to simply look the other way because Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson is running for governor."
— Chairman Vance Patrick

The complete set of complaints — all 115 cover letters as filed with the Michigan Bureau of Elections — is available for download here:
https://assets.cdn.filesafe.space/P8sa5Qb0HEfeR7FXJcfM/media/6a955840f22eac14d9b30a29.pdf

ABOUT THE OAKLAND COUNTY REPUBLICAN PARTY

The Oakland County Republican Party supports Republican and Republican-endorsed candidates up and down the ballot through voter data & technology access, candidate training, shared digital & field infrastructure, and direct legal and communications support — including the kind of research reflected in today's filings.

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08/28/2026

Make sure you're signed up for updates!

08/28/2026

Today I dropped off more signs at the Oakland County Republican Party office. Stop by and pick one up if you want to put one in your yard.

Next up: The American Ocean!
08/27/2026

Next up: The American Ocean!

"So, what do you actually do here?"By Vance Patrick, Chairman, Oakland County Republican Party — August 26th, 2026I get ...
08/26/2026

"So, what do you actually do here?"

By Vance Patrick, Chairman, Oakland County Republican Party — August 26th, 2026

I get asked this a lot by first time visitors to our HQ in Bloomfield Hills. It's a good question. They genuinely don't know, because historically, our party hasn't done a good job of explaining: what does a county party actually do?

Our job is to build the car so our candidates can get in and drive it across the finish line themselves — the voter data, the digital tools, the training, the legal muscle, the ground game. The infrastructure that makes a campaign possible in the first place.

This is almost entirely a volunteer effort. None of our senior leadership — myself, our Vice Chair, our Secretary, our Treasurer, our Youth Chair, or our Finance Chair — take a penny from OCRP. We have one paid staffer: our phenomenal Executive Director, Denise Elias, who is responsible for making sure the office is staffed, events are coordinated, and the trains run on time. No one from the RNC or MIGOP is staffing the office this cycle — it's all on us, which gives us the freedom to help our candidates the way we KNOW works.

Every county party either builds that car, or it doesn't — and if it doesn't, every one of its candidates is left trying to build their own from scratch, alone, usually without the time, money, or expertise to do it right. Since I took over in 2023, building that car has been the whole project. Below is what's actually in the garage right now, and what it's already done.

BY THE NUMBERS

$14.7M+ — Estimated candidate savings this cycle from free access to our data and tech tools
60,000+ — Voters reached by our bi-weekly newsletter, every issue, at no cost to candidates
40+ — Invalid signatures our legal team found, disqualifying a Democrat clerk candidate in Southfield
$131.7M — Annual property tax hike we helped defeat, in an August primary, the hardest format to beat one in

THE CAR WE'VE BUILT

OaklandGOPSlate.org
A voter-facing tool where Oakland County voters can enter their address and instantly see every Republican and Republican-endorsed candidate on their ballot, top to bottom, plus absentee ballot requests and polling-location lookup. Built so the county party, district committees, and clubs can put it directly on slate cards and literature — giving every down-ballot candidate a boost through one shared link.
Visit OaklandGOPSlate.org: https://oaklandgopslate.org

Free i360 Voter Data Access
Candidates and volunteers have had free access to i360 — the same best-in-class voter data and voter contact technology leading campaigns pay for — since early 2023. In the 2024 cycle, this provided an estimated candidate savings of $12.7 million, based on an analysis of positions available, i360's rack rate, and a comparison to OCRP's package.

Voter Guides & Slate Mail
Numerous judicial and nonpartisan candidates credit OCRP's 2024 voter guide and slate mail with getting them over the finish line. We've been working hard to raise the funds to do it again in 2026 — to raise the tide for every Republican and Republican-endorsed candidate — and thanks to our supporters, we're in a great position to do exactly that.
Chip In: https://secure.anedot.com/ocrp/ocrp_donation

GOP Training Center
A purpose-built online platform, free and available to Republicans across Michigan, with continuously-added courses to develop candidates, campaign staff, and grassroots activists. Day-one courses included Fundraising Fundamentals, Running for Office 101, Email Marketing & List Building, Message Development & Framing, Michigan State Government & Legislative Process, FOIA-based political research, and Social Media for GOP Organizations.
Visit GOP Training Center: https://goptraining.center

GOP Action Center
A free digital "action center" platform giving candidates and party organizations tools for petitions, surveys, and coalition-building — the kind of activation-funnel infrastructure that typically runs about $1,200 a month per State Senate candidate through commercial vendors. We estimate this saves Oakland County candidates over $2 million this cycle.
Visit GOP Action Center: https://gopaction.center

Event Support
OCRP covers the cost of making sure candidates have a presence at major events like the Arts, Beats & Eats festival over Labor Day weekend and the Woodward Dream Cruise — enormous opportunities to meet voters and generate earned media that individual candidates would otherwise have to fund and organize themselves.

A Bi-Weekly Newsletter
Gives candidates the opportunity to put their events in front of 60,000+ voters on a recurring basis, at no cost to them.

Research
We worked with investigative journalists to break stories about the corruption that envelops Democrat County Commission Chair Dave Woodward.

Opposition Microsites
OCRP builds dedicated microsites to define Democrat opponents so our own candidates don't have to carry that fight themselves. A great example is CrookedCarlson.com (https://crookedcarlson.com), launched months ago targeting Democrat State Senate District 13 candidate Sean Carlson.

THE SCOREBOARD

This infrastructure has already delivered wins — in the toughest terrain in the county.

Southfield City Clerk: Gabi Grossbard
OCRP's legal team successfully challenged Democrat candidate Wynett Guy's nominating petitions, resulting in her disqualification after an appeal to the Secretary of State confirmed more than 40 invalid signatures. That forced Democrats into a write-in effort — the Michigan Democratic Party threw multiple rounds of direct mail and significant ground presence at it, forcing them to waste money in an area they shouldn't have had to spend it, and reducing their war chest. Republican Gabi Grossbard won the race, in a city where Gretchen Whitmer took nearly 89% of the vote in the last gubernatorial election.

Defeating the Oakland County Regional Enhancement Millage
OCRP ran the first, and by far the largest, voter education campaign against a brand-new, unrestricted 1.5-mill property tax that would have taken an estimated $131.7 million a year out of residents' pockets for six years. The effort included OaklandTaxFacts.com (80,000+ visits) and MillageMadness.com, an interactive web game built to reach low-propensity and younger voters (6,000+ unique users), 450,000+ "Vote No" emails, 79,170 texts, and 1,000 yard signs distributed through party headquarters and volunteer networks. Voters rejected the millage in the August primary — an election format where tax increases are notoriously hardest to defeat, which is exactly why they get placed there. This took months of sustained, disciplined voter education, only possible because of the infrastructure we've been building since 2023.

Taken together, this is a party that built the shared data, digital, and field infrastructure most candidates could never afford individually, is actively using it to define opponents and educate voters, and has the scoreboard to show it works — even in the toughest terrain in the county.

OaklandGOPSlate.org, free i360 access, the Training Center, the Action Center, our legal team, our field program, and everything else above exists because members and donors like you make it possible. Every dollar goes directly into the infrastructure our candidates rely on to win. If you believe in what we're building, we need you to help us keep building it.

Become a Member: https://secure.anedot.com/ocrp/ocrpmembership
Donate Today: https://secure.anedot.com/ocrp/ocrp_donation

Thank you for asking what we do. Thank you, in advance, for helping us keep doing it.

Vance Patrick
Chairman, Oakland County Republican Party

House Republicans, led by Speaker Matt Hall, passed the Michigan Money Out of Politics bill this week to stop special in...
08/26/2026

House Republicans, led by Speaker Matt Hall, passed the Michigan Money Out of Politics bill this week to stop special interests from bankrolling the politicians who write their rules. 25 Democrats voted against it.

Then it got worse: Senate Majority Leader Winnie Brinks — Jocelyn Benson's pick for Lieutenant Governor — is refusing to even let the Senate vote on the bill.

As Speaker Hall put it: "You see the big utilities, they're spending millions of dollars, and our energy costs keep going up. You see it with the big insurance companies and the healthcare systems, and the healthcare costs keep going up... these big-money industries are spending millions of dollars on politics... and everything keeps getting more expensive."

Michigan Democrats had a choice: stand with voters, or stand with the utility and healthcare lobbies raising your costs. They chose the lobbyists.

👉 Sign the petition and tell Winnie Brinks to let the Senate vote: https://gopaction.center/ocrp/petition/mmop

More than 700,000 Michiganders signed petitions to put Citizens Only Voting on your November ballot — a commonsense meas...
08/25/2026

More than 700,000 Michiganders signed petitions to put Citizens Only Voting on your November ballot — a commonsense measure requiring photo ID to vote and citizenship verification at registration.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office sat on those petitions for over 160 days, then declared the measure just 3 signatures short — after rejecting signatures from voters who later submitted notarized affidavits swearing they had signed. The petition's attorney still hasn't been given access to the signatures used to disqualify it.

Michigan voters didn't get to have their say. We think you should still get to have yours.

Do you believe Democrats blocked Citizens Only Voting from the ballot because they want to keep our elections rigged? Take our survey and tell us what you think: https://gopaction.center/ocrp/survey/2026-rigged

The Oakland County Republican Party is demanding that Walter Cook immediately withdraw his candidacy for the Troy School...
08/21/2026

The Oakland County Republican Party is demanding that Walter Cook immediately withdraw his candidacy for the Troy School District Board of Education after text messages surfaced showing Cook mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

In the exchange, Cook wrote: “As the life ran out of his eyes, in his last moments… he leaned over to the left,” followed by, “Well slumped really.” Cook then made another joke about the eventual death of Steve Bannon, writing, “Maybe Bannon will hold on to his principles and drop to the right when his time comes? Idk.”

“This is not edgy humor, and it is not a harmless political joke. Walter Cook mocked the final moments of a murdered husband and father, then followed it with another disgusting crack about the death of a conservative. That is sick, depraved, and completely disqualifying. Anyone who finds amusement in political assassination has no business anywhere near a position of authority over Troy’s children.”
—Vance Patrick, Chairman, Oakland County Republican Party

Troy School Board members are entrusted with the safety, wellbeing, and education of thousands of students and staff. That responsibility requires sound judgment, moral character, and basic human decency. Cook’s own words demonstrate that he lacks all three.

“Parents should not have to wonder whether a candidate for school board views political violence as a punchline,” Patrick continued. “Walter Cook has exposed exactly who he is. He should end this campaign immediately, and every elected official, organization, and community leader supporting him should be forced to answer for whether they believe this vile conduct is acceptable.”

The Oakland County Republican Party calls on Cook to withdraw immediately and issue an unequivocal apology to Charlie Kirk’s family and the students, parents, teachers, and staff of the Troy School District. There can be no place in public office for anyone who celebrates or mocks political murder.

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42611 Woodward Avenue
Bloomfield Hills, MI
48304

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+12484997288

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