Nancy Juanita Williams, a professional guardian operating Guardian & Associates in Oak Park, was charged in October 2021 with dozens of felony counts related to voter fraud across five courts in the Metro Detroit area, stemming from the 2020 election.

Investigators determined the guardian, Nancy Juanita Williams, 55, developed and implemented a plan to obtain and control absentee ballots for legally incapacitated persons under her care by fraudulently submitting 26 absentee ballot applications to nine identified city and township clerks, seeking to have absentee ballots for those individuals mailed directly to her. She also submitted separate voter registration applications for each person – all without knowledge, consent or understanding of the person under her care.

The charges included election law forgery and forging a signature on an absentee ballot application after she submitted applications for legally incapacitated adults under her care. Many of the applications were signed with an “X” and requested that ballots be mailed directly to her company’s address.

Officials said the activity involved applications for up to 26 wards submitted to clerks in multiple jurisdictions. Prosecutors filed the charges in the 28th District Court in Southgate, the 17th District Court in Redford Township, the 18th District Court in Westland, the 29th District Court in the City of Wayne, and the 46th District Court in Southfield.

Why did no one investigate the potentially fraudulent applications Ms. Williams submitted in Detroit? And if there was an investigation, why did they not report the applications they found in nursing homes and assisted living facilities that were “assisted” by her? 

Despite the case spanning Wayne and Oakland counties, there is no public evidence that an investigation was opened into Williams’ activity in Detroit itself or into the broader 2020 election records in the city. Since there didn’t appear to be any effort to investigate whether or not Williams committed the same crimes in Detroit, where she was registered to vote, we decided to see how many applications Williams submitted with an “X” signature from nursing homes and assisted living facilities ourselves.

Jocelyn Benson used the charges against Nancy Williams to admonish the media for suggesting that elections in Michigan are neither safe nor secure and that election fraud in Michigan is far from “rare.”

“Our election system is secure, and today’s charges demonstrate that in the rare circumstances when fraud occurs we catch it and hold the perpetrators accountable. These charges also send a clear message to those who promote deceitful claims about widespread fraud: the current protocols we have in place work to protect and ensure the integrity of our elections. It’s time to share that truth and stop spreading lies to the contrary.”

Lies? Deceit? 

What about the 9 absentee voter applications with an “X” signature that were “voter assisted” by N. Williams by our team of volunteers during our research into Detroit’s 2020 election documents, Jocelyn? 

Over the past year, our team of more than 100 volunteers has reviewed nearly 1 million election documents from Detroit’s 2020 election, uploaded and organized by Phani Mantravadi, creator of Check My Vote. We obtained the documents after the City of Detroit lost a FOIA lawsuit filed by New Jersey citizen and elections activist Yehuda Miller.

When will Michigan media start asking Detroit City Clerk Janice Winfrey and Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson questions about our findings in Detroit’s 2020 election?  

Our project is 100% funded by individuals who are committed to helping us discover what really happened in Detroit’s 2020 election. Please consider donating any amount to help us continue our research by clicking HERE.

Three of the nine applications we identified as “voter assisted” by N. Williams resulted in absentee ballots being cast, and one individual voted in person.

Here are just a few examples of two absentee ballot applications with an “X” for a signature and the voter assist box filled out at the bottom of the form. These two examples are from the same nursing home in Detroit. According to the voter assist box, they were signed by N. Williams and mailed to her P.O.Box 48531, Oak Park, MI:

During our research, we discovered a highly unlikely situation. One of the Detroit “voters” whose application was “assisted” by Nancy Williams and signed with an “X” somehow signed her name on her absentee ballot envelope and, miraculously, didn’t need any assistance to vote.

Among the records we reviewed was an absentee ballot application and absentee ballot envelope for Pearl January.  According to her obituary, Ms. January, who died on August 25, 2025, had moved to Detroit from Arkansas to live with her son, Dwight Rashad, the alleged boyfriend of Nancy Juanita Williams. Pearl January was registered to vote at the same address as Nancy Williams. We found Ms. January registered to vote from Nancy Juanita Williams Detroit address. Both the application and the envelope for Ms. January contain handwritten signatures. We are not signature experts, but it’s certainly worth getting an opinion on whether or not the signatures on Ms. January’s 2020 absentee voter application and absentee envelope were written by the same person.

This is the signature and date on the absentee ballot application of the now-deceased Pearl January.

This is the signature and date of the now-deceased Pearl January on her absentee ballot envelope.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and Attorney General Dana Nessel announced the charges against Williams on October 11, 2021. In her statement to the public, Benson regurgitated a lie she frequently recites when faced with having to explain yet another discovery of mass fraud by an individual or group. Nessel is cut from the same cloth. Both promise election fraud is rare and that the person or group involved will face serious consequences for their actions. If the accused are Democrats, nothing ever happens to them.

“Our election system is secure, and today’s charges demonstrate that in the rare circumstances when fraud occurs we catch it and hold the perpetrators accountable.” Nessel said her office would “not hesitate to prosecute anyone who attempts to undermine our elections.”

Despite Benson’s claim of secure and safe elections, Williams faced dozens of felony counts, including election law forgery and forging a signature on an absentee ballot application.  All the professional guardian needed to do, however, was simply plead guilty in Wayne County Circuit Court on June 29, 2023, to seven counts of receiving payment to influence a vote, and like magic, prosecutors dismissed the remaining felony charges. She only received one year of probation and a $3,500 fine.

Although the conviction rested on Williams’s admission that she received payment for her work, neither the public court record nor any statement from Nessel or Benson identified who paid her. Why? Why would they hide this important piece of evidence from the public? Doesn’t the public have a right to know who was paying to influence the outcome of a federal election? 

The same pattern of felony charges being quietly reduced or dismissed appeared in the case of former Southfield City Clerk Sherikia Hawkins.

Hawkins faced multiple felony counts related to altering Qualified Voter File entries after the 2018 election, including forgery of a public record. Prosecutors dropped five felony charges; she pleaded no contest to misconduct in office and received no jail time. In both cases, the most serious felony allegations were resolved with limited public accountability.

Jocelyn Benson also withheld information from clerks during the 2020 investigation into GBI Strategies. Michigan State Police and local authorities examined thousands of voter registration applications submitted in Muskegon and other jurisdictions that showed signs of fraud. One of Benson’s investigators, Corey Ames, worked with the Michigan State Police on the case. Clerks across the state were receiving packages of registrations from the operation, yet Benson’s office did not alert them to the ongoing investigation. The matter was later referred to the Biden FBI and resulted in no state-level or federal charges.

Nancy Juanita Williams is still facing federal charges for her alleged role in a scheme to steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from incapacitated wards of the Wayne County Probate Court. Williams, the owner of Guardian & Associates—an agency appointed as fiduciary in more than 1,000 probate cases—is accused of conspiring with 36th District Judge Andrea Bradley-Baskin, attorney Avery Bradley, and her boyfriend Dwight Rashad to systematically embezzle money that belonged to vulnerable people under court protection. The indictment alleges she helped take roughly $203,000 from one ward’s legal settlement and paid Rashad rent for wards who never lived in his facilities. She has pleaded not guilty. The case remains unresolved, and a jury trial is currently set for October 13, 2026.

A 2025 Detroit News investigation found that Bradley-Baskin, while under FBI investigation, was involved in the sale of at least five homes belonging to vulnerable people in the probate system—including incapacitated adults, the elderly, and those with mental health problems—often for far less than market value. In several instances, the homes were sold to Rashad after Bradley-Baskin proposed the sale or drafted the deeds, including a Dearborn Heights ranch flipped in less than a month for a 72% profit. Property records show Williams and her boyfriend, Rashad, were central to these transactions involving wards under Guardian & Associates.

Benson has spent years waving off election fraud as rare and insisting that anyone who raises concerns is spreading misinformation. The Williams case produced an admission that a guardian was paid to influence votes, an unnamed payer, felony charges that were quietly dropped, and additional applications tied to ballots that were actually cast. The Hawkins case produced felony charges that disappeared and no real punishment. The GBI Strategies investigation shows her office knew about a statewide operation sending fraudulent registrations to clerks and said nothing.

While Benson has repeatedly dismissed fraud as rare, Republican-led efforts in the Michigan Legislature and citizen researchers have continued to document irregularities that her office has not fully addressed. House Republicans have pressed for answers on the GBI Strategies operation, voter roll issues, and other discrepancies that surfaced after 2020. The Williams applications, the Hawkins case, and the unpublicized GBI investigation are part of a larger body of evidence that has been identified under legislative scrutiny rather than where it should be dealt with — the Secretary of State’s office.

Michigan voters now face a choice: Do they want a governor who continues to downplay and, in some cases, withhold information about election irregularities—especially when they involve her own party—or one who takes the evidence that has already been uncovered seriously?

In less than 3 weeks, we will know the answer to this question:

WILL MICHIGAN VOTERS REALLY CHOOSE AMERICA’S MOST CROOKED SECRETARY OF STATE AS THEIR NEXT GOVERNOR?

Charges against Nancy Juanita Williams – Wayne & Oakland counties

A link to an FBI form requesting information about wards of Guardian and Associates remains active.