Michigan: What Benson vs. GOP election-manual fight is really about | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan’s top election official is locked in a clamorous legal battle with Republican lawmakers over access to election training materials, a conflict that likely has less to do with policy than politics — and the coming race for governor. And if the battle continues at its current volume, voter trust in Michigan’s elections could take a beating. On one side is Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who won her 2022 re-election race by nearly 14 percentage points and is now a leading Democratic candidate for governor. Since 2019, she has been a key part of the Democratic power structure in the executive branch and the face of election oversight in a swing state that became a target of heavy scrutiny and conspiracy theories after Donald Trump’s 2020 loss. On the other side is the Michigan state House, back under Republican control since January, which has subpoenaed her, sued her, and even made moves to impeach her. Read Article

Michigan: Election oversight fight headed to court: House GOP files lawsuit against Secretary of State | Zoe Clark and Rick Pluta/Michigan Public Radio

House Republicans are putting the squeeze on Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in their ongoing feud over election materials that brings into play legislative prerogatives versus executive authority. The newest twist is the House complaint filed this week in the Michigan Court of Claims to compel Benson to comply with a legislative subpoena. Not that this is a surprise. The level of trust between the House GOP majority and the Democratic Secretary of State hovers somewhere around non-existent. The GOP-controlled House voted along party lines last month to hold Benson in civil contempt, which cleared the way for the lawsuit alleging “irrational and even conspiratorial objections” to keep those materials from the House Oversight Committee and the House Election Integrity Committee. Read Article

Michigan House sues Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson over election training materials | Clara Hendrickson/Detroit Free Press

The Michigan House of Representatives filed a lawsuit Thursday, June 5, against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, transforming the fight between Republican lawmakers and the state’s chief elections officer over election training materials into a legal battle. House Republicans have repeatedly argued that they have a right to review the material to ensure that election officials receive proper training that complies with Michigan election law. Benson, meanwhile, has raised concerns that some of the information requested could compromise election security and fears it could end up in the wrong hands. The lawsuit comes after Republican lawmakers in the state House voted to hold Benson in contempt for withholding some election training materials requested by the House Oversight Committee, which subpoenaed Benson and the Michigan Department of State. Read Article

Michigan: Common Cause: GOP-led citizenship requirement may upend voting protections | Ben Solis/Michigan Advance

Michigan has been fortunate to have few recent attacks on voting rights from the state Legislature, but a House Republican-led initiative calling for proof of citizenship to vote could curtail newly adopted constitutional protections, Common Cause Michigan said Thursday. The assessment of Michigan’s voter protections came during a virtual press call hosted by the national branch of Common Cause, which featured updates on legislative voting rights attacks in Florida, North Carolina, Michigan and Texas. Quentin Turner, executive director of Common Cause Michigan, said the fundamental right to vote in Michigan is mostly secure thanks to constitutional protections passed by voters in recent years. Those protections, however, could be at risk with House Republicans pushing for a constitutional amendment requiring proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Read Article

Michigan GOP lawmakers lose U.S. Supreme Court bid to void election laws | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday turned away a petition by 11 Republican Michigan legislators who sought to overturn expanded voting measures enacted through statewide ballot initiatives, bringing an end to the federal case known as Lindsey v. Whitmer. The federal case was always a longshot, experts told Votebeat when it was first brought before the Supreme Court, which hears only about 150 of the thousands of requests it gets each year. The justices denied the lawmakers’ petition without comment. But their attorney, conservative legal activist Erick Kaardal, told lawmakers that he’s not done trying to challenge the election measures, which include no-reason absentee voting, and straight-party voting, passed as part of 2018’s Proposal 3, as well as early voting and ballot drop boxes from Proposal 2 in 2022. Read article

Michigan Department of State says subpoenas for election training materials violate the law | Anna Liz Nichols/Michigan Advance

In response to Michigan House Republicans issuing subpoenas for copies of election-related training materials, the Michigan Department of State is asking lawmakers to narrow their request in the interest of election security. Members of the Republican-led House Oversight Committee issued subpoenas last month ordering Democrat Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to turn over educational and training documents used in preparing clerks and poll workers to oversee elections, which Benson’s office said Wednesday would be a violation of the law. The subpoena is the latest maneuver in a months-long effort by House Republicans to obtain copies of training materials, beginning with Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Martin) requesting them late last year, before she became chair of the House Election Integrity Committee. Read Article

Michigan Democrats’ election proposals sidestep noncitizen-voting issue | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan Democrats introduced their first pieces of legislation to respond to what they consider overly aggressive Republican proposals to improve election security. As proposed, the package of bills under the Michigan Election Security Act won’t close the voter registration loopholes that may have allowed at least one noncitizen to cast a ballot that counted last year. And the bills omit the measures Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson suggested in February as a way to prevent noncitizens from casting ballots in Michigan’s elections. In fact, the initial bills do little to directly address the threat of noncitizen voting, which Republicans have made a top priority since taking control of the House in January. Read Article

Michigan voter proof-of-citizenship effort fails on first House vote | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

An attempt to get a proof-of-citizenship requirement for would-be voters onto the 2026 ballot failed along party lines Thursday in the Michigan House — a blow to the GOP-backed effort, but likely not the final word. The measure would require new Michigan voters — and almost certainly some current ones — to provide documents proving they are U.S. citizens before they can cast a ballot in the state. The measure’s sponsor, state Rep. Bryan Posthumus, a Republican from Rockford, said the resolution “is a common-sense way to close a massive loophole in our current system.” Read Article

Michigan ballot effort to require citizenship proof for voting moves ahead | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Backers of an effort to require new Michigan voters to produce proof of their U.S. citizenship have the go-ahead to begin their petition drive to get the question on the ballot next November as a proposed constitutional amendment. The bipartisan Board of State Canvassers on Friday unanimously approved a 96-word summary of the proposal that will appear on petitions around Michigan. That starts a 180-day clock for the Committee to Protect Voters’ Rights, a group that’s leading the petition drive, to gather nearly 450,000 valid signatures from registered voters across the state. The group, which also operates under the name “Prove It, Michigan,” has previously challenged state-level expansions to voting rights. Read Article

Michigan: With Trump’s executive order, thousands of military voters could see their rights curtailed | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Thousands of Michigan voters — including scores of military members and their families — could see their voting rights curtailed if President Donald Trump’s recent executive order on voting is allowed to take effect. The order, issued late last month, introduces major changes to how elections would be run. Among its most concerning provisions for those who serve in the military or live outside the U.S.: a requirement that all voters submit proof of citizenship and that all ballots, including those coming from abroad, must arrive by the close of polls on Election Day to be counted. Voters who live overseas or serve in the military are largely protected by the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, known as UOCAVA. It guarantees that those living away from their home states or around the world can still cast their ballots. Reaqd Article

Michigan lawmakers seek U.S. Supreme Court’s help in effort to overturn voting expansion | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Eleven Republican Michigan legislators want the U.S. Supreme Court to consider a case that could overturn some of the biggest expansions of voting rights in Michigan’s history. They’re asking the nation’s highest court to determine whether they have the right to sue to overturn a set of popular statewide measures approved by voters through ballot initiatives, claiming those measures violate the U.S. Constitution. These include automatic registration, no-reason absentee voting, and straight-party voting, passed as part of 2018’s Proposal 3, as well as early voting, the permanent absentee-ballot list, and ballot drop boxes from Proposal 2 in 2022. Read Article

Michigan is short of clerks to oversee elections, but harassment and workload turn people away | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

In Michigan, local clerks have a lot of responsibilities. They manage elections, issue marriage certificates, handle requests for public documents, and numerous other duties. And just the election part has grown in recent years. Changes to the state Constitution to expand voting rights — like Prop 3 in 2018 and Prop 2 in 2022 — have increased the amount of work clerks have to put into elections. They now have to stand ready to register voters on Election Day, run at least eight days of early voting, and manage the distribution of absentee ballots to a growing list of voters every election cycle. The growing demands of the job — combined with the low pay people have come to associate with civic jobs — are discouraging new recruits, limiting the pipeline of talent for a critical role in the democratic process. In 2024, research found, 90% of clerk races in Michigan had only one candidate, and some small communities struggled to find anyone to run. Reasd Article

Michigan plans to remove 318,000 inactive voters | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s office announced Tuesday morning it will remove more than 318,000 inactive registrations from the state’s voter rolls in April. The number represents about 4% of the total registered voters in Michigan, where debates over election law have been persistent amid close presidential elections in 2016, 2020 and 2024. “This is a milestone for Michigan’s secure and accessible election system,” Benson said in a statement. “State and local election officials are constantly working to maintain our voter rolls transparently, accurately and in accordance with state and federal law.” Read Article

Michigan’s elections committee to be led by former clerk who believes 2020 was stolen | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

State Rep. Rachelle Smit, a former local clerk who believes the 2020 presidential election was stolen from President Donald Trump, will run the Michigan House’s committee on elections under the new GOP leadership. Smit, a Republican from Martin, was named the chair of the House’s Election Integrity Committee, as it has now been renamed. Her claims that the 2020 election was stolen have been roundly debunked but won her an endorsement from President Donald Trump, who praised her as someone “who knows our Elections are not secure, and that there was rampant Voter Fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election.” Read Article

Michigan GOP proposes proof-of-citizenship requirement for voters | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

A new proposal from a top Michigan House Republican seeks to require would-be voters to provide proof that they are U.S. citizens when they register. The proposal to amend the state constitution isn’t likely to pass the Legislature with required two-thirds support, but conservatives are already gearing up for a petition drive to try to put the proposal before voters on the 2026 ballot. The proposed amendment is the latest in a growing movement across the United States to create barriers to noncitizen voting, even though there’s little evidence that a significant number of noncitizens try to vote. Federal laws already ban noncitizens from voting in elections, and the risks for them are high, including felony charges and the loss of their residency status. Read Article

Michigan’s GOP House rebrands committee to spotlight ‘election integrity’ | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

After taking control of the Michigan House of Representatives, Republican lawmakers have begun shaping their election policy priorities. They’ve made one conspicuous change already: renaming the House’s Elections Committee — a standing body that outlives the control of any one party — the Election Integrity Committee. Republicans in Michigan and around the country continue to push the theme of election integrity as a counterweight to Democratic efforts to expand voting access. Whether the committee name change amounts to a mere branding exercise, or represents a firm marker of election policy priorities for Michigan’s House leaders will become clearer in the coming weeks, as members of the committee are chosen and leaders lay out their agenda. For now, it makes Michigan one of the first few states to have a legislative group dedicated by name to the idea of election integrity. Read Article

Michigan: Trump’s false 2020 electors make renewed bid to get charges dropped | Craig Mauger/The Detroit News

In a series of new court filings, Michigan Republicans who signed a certificate falsely claiming Donald Trump won the 2020 election contended their actions amounted to “participating in the political process” and urged a judge to dismiss their charges. The new filings provided the most detailed look yet at false electors’ defense arguments. They also represented an attempt to knock down felony charges that Nessel, a Democrat, announced in July 2023 against the 16 Michigan Republicans whose names appeared on the false certificates, which were used by the Trump campaign in an unsuccessful bid to overturn his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden. Read Article

Michigan Senate votes forward proposed penalties for spreading false election information | Kyle Davidson/Michigan Advance

Late in the evening on Thursday, members of the Michigan Senate voted along party lines to advance a bill creating fines for intentionally making a false statement about Michigan elections. Senate Bill 707 specifies individuals who knowingly misrepresent the time, place or manner of an election; the qualifications or restrictions on voter eligibility; criminal penalties associated with voting in an election; an individuals’ voter registration status or eligibility would be subject to a fine of up to $1,000 for each violation. The bill clarifies that an individual has intentionally and knowingly made a false statement or representation if they know it is false and make the statement with the intent to hinder or prevent another individual from voting in an election. Read Article

Michigan looks to strengthen petition-gathering laws after 2022 gubernatorial debacle | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Democrats in the Michigan Legislature are attempting to pass a slew of bills to revamp the regulations around how signatures are gathered and verified on petitions to get statewide candidates and issues on the ballot. The legislation aims to avert the type of fiasco seen in 2022, when five Republican gubernatorial candidates and several judicial candidates were kept off the ballot because of thousands of fraudulent signatures on their nominating petitions. The bills would disincentivize paid signature gatherers — called circulators — from collecting fake signatures or those obtained by lying about the issue on the petition. Michigan has relatively few restrictions on those who collect signatures, a necessary task for candidates to get on the ballot and a hallmark of any public space during an election year. If enacted, the legislation could reshape how signature collection takes place by changing how circulators are paid and how those signatures are processed. Read Article

Michigan Voting Rights Act moves forward despite concerns from local clerks | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

A set of bills that would expand voting rights for non-English speakers and voters with disabilities is moving closer to becoming state law after the House elections committee voted Tuesday to advance the bills championed by Democrats and Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson. In a vote along party lines, the committee passed four bills that make up the proposed Michigan Voting Rights Act. Next, the bills will go before the entire House for a vote. They were approved by the Senate back in September after spending nearly a year in that chamber’s committee. The bills aim to expand ballot access by providing ballots in more languages, create a voting data clearinghouse, codify protections for voters who may need help casting their ballot, and broadly aim to prevent voting suppression. Read Article

Michigan managed to speed up election results, but some things just take time | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan set itself up to blaze through its 2024 ballot counts. New policies were in the state’s favor, including pre-processing of absentee ballots as well as early in-person voting, and voters and election officials took full advantage. But elections are ultimately a human process, from who participates in them to who runs them. And it was mostly a set of human factors that prevented the state from releasing unofficial results until the middle of the day on Wednesday. Getting results any faster in future elections is likely to prove difficult, officials say. But that doesn’t mean they’re not going to try. Read Article

Michigan: Here’s how initial unofficial election results got messed up for 5 counties | Paul Egan/Detroit Free Press

County clerks would like Michigan voters to know that unofficial election results are just that — unofficial and potentially subject to change. Errors in the initial results the state posted from Kent, Kalamazoo, Leelanau, Calhoun and Allegan counties threw off totals by close to 50,000 votes. That’s less than 1% of the more than 5.5 million ballots cast statewide, but the updated unofficial numbers will likely change the anticipated outcome of a statewide race for the MSU Board of Trustees and potentially impact one state House race and at least one local race. Clerks stress that in cases where initial posted results were incomplete, the actual results — and therefore the actual outcomes of races — never changed. The votes were in those cases correctly tabulated. Where mistakes happened, they say, is in how the initial results were reported, with some results from some precincts being initially omitted from what counties and/or the state posted online. Any such errors in unofficial numbers would have been caught in the canvassing of the results, which in many counties is still underway, but in fact were caught before the canvasses even began, clerks say. Read Article/a>

Michigan: She fought to restore trust in an election system Trump attacked. Then he won. | David Maraniss/The Washington Post

Jocelyn Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, had just concluded an election night news conference at Ford Field extolling the virtues of the vote when she learned that Donald Trump might be on his way to reclaiming the presidency. She had worked relentlessly all year, and all of that long final day and night, trying to ensure that citizens in her state experienced a calm, safe and accessible election, only to see it lead to the restoration of a man and a movement that seemed the opposite of almost everything she believes in. Although Benson is a Democrat who supported Kamala Harris in a state crucial to the vice president’s chances, she was also the overseer of a nonpartisan election system. As disappointed as she might have been by the national result, her faith in democracy compelled her to accept it. Read Article

Michigan Clerks Removed From Election Duty Over Plans for a Hand Count | Alexandra Berzon/The New York Times

Two local election officials in Michigan have been removed from overseeing the vote, state officials said on Tuesday, in a forceful move to keep Trump-aligned officials from trying to subvert election rules. Tom Schierkolk, the clerk of Rock River Township in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and his deputy, David LaMere, were removed after telling state officials that they intended to hand count ballots before sending their tally on for the county canvass, according to a letter that Jonathan Brater, Michigan’s elections director, sent to Mr. Schierkolk on Monday informing him of the decision. Mr. Schierkolk is tied to a network of activists who have pushed several baseless theories about corruption in elections and, at times, advocated the hand-counting of ballots, apparently believing that electronic voting machines are insecure. Donald J. Trump and his allies spread the idea widely after his defeat in 2020, claiming, falsely, that the machines had changed the votes to Joseph R. Biden Jr. Reead Article

‘Is it going to be safe?’: Suspicions and fear dominate a crucial Michigan county in lead-up to US election | Chris McGreal/The Guardian

Vanessa Guerra is resigned to questions from Donald Trump’s supporters about the many ways in which American voters imagine next month’s presidential election might be rigged against him. But more recently the Saginaw county clerk, who is overseeing the ballot in a highly contested patch of central Michigan, has faced a new line of questioning at meetings called to reassure distrustful voters. “I did a presentation last week and, as usual, we had a lot of questions about the validity of election results. But now they’re also asking: Is it going to be safe to go to the polls on election day? Is something going to happen? That’s something new,” said Guerra. Read Article

Michigan doesn’t have more active registered voters than residents | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

A misleading claim promoted by right-wing activists has gained traction through X owner Elon Musk and other supporters of Donald Trump, feeding a false impression that there’s something wrong with Michigan’s voter rolls. The claim — that Michigan has more voters than people eligible to vote — has been debunked extensively by the state as well as independent experts. A federal court ruling this week weighed in on a similar GOP claim, finding flaws in the comparison of data points and no proof that the discrepancy amounts to a violation of law, just as previous courts have found. Musk and others cite the data points to argue that the discrepancy could enable fraudulent voting. The claim is based on a misunderstanding about the makeup of the state’s voter roll and what it means in relation to Census population data. It ignores the fact that the total number of registrations on the roll includes a large number of voters who are marked as inactive but who must be kept on the roll for several years under federal law. Most of those voters likely are no longer residents of the state. Read Article

Michigan judge says RNC suit challenging overseas voters could ‘disenfranchise an entire group of citizens’ | Josh Gerstein/Politico

A Michigan judge suggested Thursday that Republicans waited too long to file a suit challenging the right of some U.S. citizens who live abroad to vote in the swing state. During an hourlong hearing in Detroit, Judge Sima Patel said that delay and the proximity to the election were the “biggest hurdle” facing a suit the Republican National Committee and the Michigan Republican Party filed Oct. 8 to disqualify voters who registered in the state as the spouses or dependents of U.S. citizens living overseas. A Michigan law and guidance from Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson allow a spouse or dependent accompanying a Michigan resident overseas to cast a ballot in Michigan, as long as they aren’t registered elsewhere in the U.S. Read Article

Michigan: ‘What the hell’: Sheriffs dive into presidential race | Craig Mauger and Melissa Nann Burke/The Detroit News

Some Michigan sheriffs in charge of enforcing the law in their counties have gotten heavily involved this year in a heated presidential race, drawing criticism from opponents who argue the politicking — often done in uniform — has gone too far. From both sides of the aisle, sheriffs, elected on a partisan basis in Michigan, have been attempting to navigate a challenging political climate. Some have exercised their freedom to endorse candidates, while one sheriff used government resources for a campaign event to make a political contribution that’s now under investigation over its legality. Livingston County Sheriff Mike Murphy, a Republican, used his government email account in August to help organize a campaign event for GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump that took place inside a sheriff’s department garage. Read Article

Michigan poll challengers get new state guidelines for 2024 election | Hayley Harding/Votebeat

Michigan poll challengers face stricter rules going into the November election, part of a wave of new requirements that aim to prevent some of the disruptions that marred the ballot counting process four years ago. Poll challengers — distinct from poll workers and poll watchers — are individuals stationed at polling places and vote-counting centers who have unique powers under Michigan law to challenge a voter’s eligibility or question the way officials are doing their jobs. Their role in Michigan elections drew national attention in 2020, when some poll challengers who were kept out of a ballot processing center in Detroit that was filled to capacity began banging on the windows and demanding a halt to the count. Read Article

Michigan: No, officials aren’t stealing your votes in Bay County | Joey Oliver/Mlive.com

Officials with the Michigan State Police said a pair of people inside a Bay County township’s hall late Monday evening were there on official business and are dispelling rumors that they were tampering with voting equipment. Lt. Kimberly Vetter, the spokesperson for the state police’s third district, said troopers responded to the Beaver Township Hall late Monday, Sept. 23, after a caller said they went inside the building after noticing the lights inside were on. The caller, who according to Bay County 911 calls identified himself as an area firefighter, said he went inside the building and found two women claiming to be employees of the Beaver Township Clerk’s Office taking apart a “voting machine.” Vetter said troopers who responded to the scene were able to verify the two women were members of the clerk’s office and were conducting legitimate business in preparation for the Nov. 5 General Election. Read Article