Michigan: Redistricting debate: Creepy lizard or compact lines? | Detroit Free Press

Kevin Deegan-Krause held up an oddly shaped Lego creation last week and asked a crowd of about 150 people in Plymouth, “Can a creepy lizard threaten democracy?” His red and blue depiction of the sprawling 14th Congressional District didn’t look like a creepy lizard. His son thinks it looks like a saxophone, while his daughter says it resembles an assault rifle — even including an open spot for a trigger where Farmington has been carved out of the district. The Lego blocks may not look like the Massachusetts congressional district drawn in 1812 that spawned the term gerrymander — that district looked like a salamander and was combined with the name of the Massachusetts governor at the time, Elbridge Gerry. But Deegan-Krause’s teaching tool is a pretty accurate representation of the 14th Congressional District and a classic example of how gerrymandering is happening in Michigan.

Michigan: Supreme Court could decide if Emergency Manager law violates Voting Rights Act | MLive.com

Attorneys are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear a case challenging Michigan's emergency manager law, contending Flint's water crisis now stands as evidence for "what happens when the government is allowed to run our communities based only on the 'bottom line.' "In filing a petition for a Writ of Certiorari Friday, March 31, Ann Arbor attorney and professor Samuel R. Bagenstos claims the emergency manager law is racially discriminatory and deprives citizens of their rights under the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

Michigan: Who wants to make absentee voting easier in Michigan? | Michigan Radio

The effort to allow any Michigan voter to request an absentee ballot may be close to critical mass in the state Senate. That’s as more Republicans are accepting the idea that anyone who wants to mail in or drop off their ballot should be allowed to without having to lie to do it. The rule right now in Michigan is that, unless you’re a senior citizen, physically handicapped or expect to be out of town on Election Day, you’re expected to show up at the polls on Election Day. So, right now, people who want to vote absentee but don’t fit into one of those categories are just lying. “We are talking about a small change to encourage people, not to have to lie, whether or not they’ll be in town. I think it just encourages people to get out there,” Republican state Senator Wayne Schmidt told It’s Just Politics. Schmidt is sponsoring a bill to allow no-reason absentee voting in Michigan.

Michigan: ‘Ballot selfie’ battle resurfaces in Michigan with proposal to allow them | Fox17

The ban on so-called ‘ballot selfies’ in Michigan is resurfacing with the introduction of a new proposal that would allow voters to use their cell phones or other cameras to take pictures of their ballots or themselves with their ballots in a polling place. Rep. Steve Johnson, R-Wayland, introduced the proposal which has bi-partisan support in the Legislature. “Around the country, people increasingly are sharing pictures of their ballot as a way to show support for candidates and issues,” Johnson said in a statement, adding that 20 other states currently allow ‘ballot selfies.’

Michigan: State finalizes $82M contract for new voting machines | The Detroit News

The Secretary of State’s office finalized its contract to replace the state’s ailing voting machines with new equipment in time for the August 2018 primaries. The Board of State Canvassers on Tuesday approved a plan the State Administrative Board previously authorized. It could grant vendors up to $82.1 million over the next 10 years to replace the state’s voting machines with new optical scanners expected to be up and running by August 2018. The new machines still use paper ballots, so not much changes for voters in the polling booth, said state Elections Director Chris Thomas. But the new technology will make things easier for election workers by setting up a statewide repository showing results all in one place. “The voters themselves are not gonna notice a whole lot,” Thomas said. “Just to have a statewide repository for all elections – it just doesn’t exist right now. It’s a big step forward. No question.”

Michigan: State audit: No evidence of fraud in Detroit vote | The Detroit Free Press

The state has found no evidence of voter fraud after auditing 136 Detroit precincts that couldn’t be recounted after the November election. Chris Thomas, the Secretary of State’s director of elections, said there were problems with the performance of staff at the precincts where the ballots couldn’t be recounted either because the numbers in poll books didn’t match the number of ballots in the box or because some ballot boxes were improperly sealed. “There was no pervasive fraud found in our audit of Detroit. We did not find widespread voting machine problems," Thomas said at a news conference Thursday. "We did find widespread performance issues that tracked back to the training by the Detroit city clerk."

Michigan: Elections chief urges recount reform | The Detroit News

Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Chris Thomas called Thursday for a change in state law to make recounts easier after Detroit’s election night counting problems. The Michigan Bureau of Elections audited 136 of the city’s most irregular precincts — “the worst of the worst,” it said — after a Wayne County canvass revealed “significant discrepancies” in the number of voters and ballots in 392 Detroit precincts. After an extensive review, it was able to narrow nearly 600 uncounted-for votes to 216. “I think the time has come for at least a consideration of that,” Thomas said at a press conference following the release of an audit that concluded that discrepancies between the recorded number of votes and actual ballots cast in Detroit were the result of human error. Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein requested a statewide recount that was stopped after nearly 40 percent of Michigan’s precincts were retallied because state and federal courts ruled she had no chance of winning, and thus wasn’t an “aggrieved” candidate under state law.

Michigan: Democrats preparing a lawsuit over ‘rigged’ redistricting system in Michigan | Michigan Radio

Letters are being sent to some 60 attorneys, legislators and ex-legislators, staffers and ex-staffers, Governor Rick Snyder, and many others, telling them: Anything you have related to the 2011 redistricting process, you better keep it. We’re talking drafts of maps, emails, instructions, and confidential analysis. This is in anticipation of a lawsuit on behalf of Democratic voters in Michigan to challenge Congressional and Legislative district lines. The lawsuit will argue that the maps we have right now are an unconstitutional violation of First Amendment rights. “They are rigged in favor of Republican candidates at both the legislative and congressional levels,” former Michigan Democratic Party chair Mark Brewer told It’s Just Politics. Brewer, a lawyer, is preparing the lawsuit. “Democrats consistently take a majority or a near-majority of the votes in those bodies, but do not take a majority or a near-majority of the seats.” This has been an argument that Democrats in Michigan have been making for awhile.

Michigan: Democrats to challenge ‘partisan gerrymander’ in Michigan | The Detroit News

Former Michigan Democratic Party chairman and attorney Mark Brewer is preparing to sue state officials over what he alleges is an “unconstitutional partisan gerrymander” that has helped Republicans consolidate power but minimized the voice of Democratic voters he will represent. The pending lawsuit seeks to build on a recent federal court ruling in Wisconsin, where a three-judge panel ruled in a 2-1 decision that the state’s Republican-led Legislature crafted a plan for political district boundaries that “systematically dilutes the voting strength of Democratic voters statewide.” The U.S. District Court panel last week ordered Wisconsin to redraw its maps ahead of the 2018 election, but the state is expected to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. “Our clients believe that the current Michigan legislative and congressional redistricting plans are similarly flawed,” Brewer wrote this week in a letter he said he sent to roughly 60 state legislators, staffers and other officials involved in redrawing district boundaries following the 2010 U.S. Census.

Michigan: Report: No evidence of Michigan voter fraud | The Detroit News

A conservative economic analysis firm on Monday released a report saying a comprehensive review of Michigan’s voting data shows no widespread voter fraud in the state, a point echoed last week by Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. The report by East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group was prompted by claims of election tampering by Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein as well as President Donald Trump’s unsubstantiated assertion that 3 million to 5 million people voted illegally in the 2016 election. Trump argued that millions of illegal votes came from “those registered to vote in two states, those who are illegal and even those registered to vote who are dead,” a point that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said could refer to states like New York and California where the Republican businessman did not campaign.

Michigan: Detroit clerk addresses troubled election; state audit shows no proof of voter fraud | Michigan Radio

Detroit city clerk Janice Winfrey has broken her public silence about irregularities in the city’s November’s election results. Michigan’s presidential recount was halted mid-process. But the partial recount revealed that more than half of Detroit precincts were legally ineligible to be recounted, because reported vote counts didn’t match the actual number of ballots. That prompted the state to launch an audit, which is still wrapping up. Winfrey has said very little during that time. But state elections officials have now said there is no evidence of fraud, a finding Winfrey reiterated that at a press conference Friday. Instead, she said it mostly revealed a lot of “human error” at the “precinct level.”

Michigan: State moves on $82M voting machine plan | The Detroit News

Secretary of State Ruth Johnson is moving forward with plans to replace aging voting machines around the state with “next generation” systems by August 2018. The State Administrative Board on Tuesday unanimously approved up to $82.1 million in spending over the next 10 years under contracts with three vendors who will supply new tabulator machines, election-management software and maintenance agreements. The state is expected to cover about $40 million of the spending, including most up-front costs, leaving local communities to foot the rest of the bill. Cost-sharing requirements will vary by community depending on which vendor local clerks select. “The new equipment offers voters all the speed and convenience of the latest ballot-scanning and election-night reporting technology while at the same time featuring a good, old-fashioned paper ballot that we can always go back and look at if we need to,” Johnson said in a statement.

Michigan: Voters may see new voting machines as soon as August | MLive.com

Michigan limped through the last election on machines that were more than a decade old, but clerks across the state will soon purchase new ones under contracts approved by the State Administrative Board on Tuesday. "Every election currently, we're always dealing with different types of mechanical breakdowns ... just because the equipment is old and it's time to upgrade to new technology," said City of Walker Clerk Sarah Bydalek, who is president of the Michigan Association of Municipal Clerks. Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said the old machines her precincts use come with humidity issues, and jam if ballots absorb too much moisture. But clerks are expecting those issues to decrease with a statewide rollout of new voting machines by Aug. 2018. The State Administrative Board approved 10-year contracts with three different vendors: Dominion Voting Systems, Election Systems and Software and Hart InterCivic. Secretary of State spokesman Fred Woodhams said each county clerk would choose a system to go with, and local clerks in that county would purchase that system.

Michigan: Johnson: Michigan may boost post-election audits | The Detroit News

Secretary of State Ruth Johnson said Thursday voting irregularities in Detroit and elsewhere in Michigan that spurred a state audit of the city’s ballots are prompting consideration of expanding post-election audits. Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during the presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News. The voting irregularities prompted an audit of the city’s ballots following the election. “We’ve done 1,400 of them, and we’re going to be looking at how we can broaden those audits even further,” Johnson said after a celebration of Michigan’s 180th anniversary as a state, without providing further details. “We’re looking at that right now because we’re doing some auditing of some of the communities that had some issues, and then we’ll know more exactly what we need to do because there’s nothing more important to democracy than making sure that we have great elections.” Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of Detroit’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books.

Michigan: State Selects New Voting Machine Vendors for Next Election | Government Technology

New voting equipment will be available for the next statewide election in August 2018 after the Michigan Secretary of State announced the selection of three vendors Tuesday that local clerks can use for future elections. The pricetag will not be cheap. The state administrative board approved contracts Tuesday with the three vendors that will cost between $52 million and $82 million. The state has $30 million leftover from the federal Help America Vote Act funds that were provided to states for new equipment after the 2000 elections. And the Legislature approved an additional $10 million last year to pay for the new machines. And while that will cover the majority of the cost for the new system, Fred Woodhams, spokesman for Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, said Tuesday that there will be a cost for local communities of roughly $1,000 to $2,000 per precinct. Some communities have a minimal number of precincts, but for cities like Detroit, Warren, Southfield and Grand Rapids, the costs could be significant. Detroit has nearly 500 precincts, while Grand Rapids has 77, Warren has 58 and Southfield has 36.

Michigan: State chief: Nothing ‘fraudulent’ in Detroit election | The Detroit News

An ongoing but largely completed state audit of the Nov. 8 presidential election in Detroit has yet to produce any evidence of fraud, Michigan Bureau of Elections Director Chris Thomas said Tuesday. Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office launched the audit in mid-December after voting irregularities were discovered during a partial recount of the election, including mismatches between ballot boxes and recorded vote totals in nearly 60 percent of the city’s precincts. While state auditors continue to review data in Lansing, they have finished on-the-ground work in Detroit. A report is expected in early February. “We essentially are finding so far — it’s certainly not final — but we’ve not run into anything we’d call fraudulent,” Thomas said. “We’ve seen a lot of performance issues, and that’s primarily what we’ve run into.”

Michigan: Justice Department sues Eastpointe, cites voting rights violations | Detroit Free Press

The Justice Department is suing the city of Eastpointe, alleging that it violates the Voting Rights Act by denying black residents an equal opportunity to elect city council members of their choice. The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in Detroit, says no black candidate has ever served on the Eastpointe City Council and that white voters have consistently opposed and defeated black voters’ preferred black candidates. It seeks a court order that would force Eastpointe to change how its city council is elected. It currently consists of the mayor and four council members who serve staggered four-year terms. Of the 32,000 people living in Eastpointe in 2010, nearly 10,000 were black, according to the U.S. Census. Current estimates place the city’s black population at closer to 40%.

Michigan: US Justice Department files voting rights suit against Eastpointe | The Detroit News

No black resident has ever won office for council, school board or legislative district in this Macomb County city, even though one-third of its electorate is black, according to the federal government. The U.S. Justice Department blames Eastpointe’s electoral process, saying electing members by citywide popular vote — instead of by district — is racially discriminatory and violates the Voting Rights Act. The Justice Department on Tuesday filed a federal complaint seeking to end the practice, which city officials say has been in place since 1929.

Michigan: Stein: Election audits should be automatic in Michigan | The Detroit News

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein said Wednesday her abbreviated recount effort showed the vote “was not carefully guarded” in Michigan and should spur legislative action to require automatic post-election audits. Republican President-elect Donald Trump was poised to maintain his 10,000-vote margin over Democrat Hillary Clinton when Michigan’s hand recount was halted more than two million ballots in, but Stein suggested the rare glimpse under the hood of the state election system served an important purpose. “What we discovered is we do not have a system that we can trust,” Stein said in a radio interview on Michigan’s Big Show, citing complaints from Detroit election officials who said 87 optical scanner voting machines failed on Election Day, along with other documented vote count and ballot handling irregularities.

Michigan: Ballot cans must be replaced after recount problems | The Digital Reporter

After problems with the Branch County recount for the November Presidential election, there will be a change in how voted ballots are stored. Branch County Clerk Terry Kubasiak told township supervisors, this week, the County Board of Canvassers plans to ban the use of decades old metal vote cans for after election ballot storage. "The Bureau of Elections was there and pretty much told the Board of Canvassers they should not have certified (the ballot cans) the last time," Kubasiak explained. That means each township must buy approved ballot bags. Branch County ballots went through a recount in Kalamazoo before courts ended the complete state recount of presidential ballots. Six of the 22 precincts could not be recounted.

Michigan: Fact check: No proof in story of mass voter fraud in Michigan | Detroit Free Press

A widely shared story that claimed in headlines that Michigan had mass Democratic voter fraud and that more than half of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's Detroit vote faces disqualification is false. State election officials say there is no proof to back up either claim. The story posted by Higgins News Network on Dec. 6 is headlined: "Michigan Recount: Over 1/2 of Hillary Clinton's Detroit Vote Faces Disqualification," with an updated headline on Dec. 7: "Michigan Recount Halted After Mass Voter Fraud Discovery," with a subhead: "Federal Judge Officially Stops Michigan Recount After Discovery of Widespread Democrat Vote Fraud."

Michigan: Detroit’s election woes: 782 more votes than voters | Detroit Free Press

Whether the result of machine malfunction, human error or even fraud, the unexplained voting discrepancies in Detroit last month were not sizable enough to affect the outcome in Michigan of the presidential election, according to a new Free Press analysis of voting precinct records. In 248 precincts, there were a total of 782 more votes tabulated by voting machines than the number of voters listed as picking up ballots in the precincts’ poll books. That makes up just three-tenths of 1% of the total 248,211 votes that were logged in Detroit for the presidential election. That number was far too small to swing the statewide election results, even in this year’s especially tight race that saw a Republican win Michigan for the first time since George Bush in 1988. Donald Trump carried Michigan by 10,704 votes, or 47.5% to 47.3%, according to the final results submitted to the Michigan Secretary of State. But in Detroit, Democrat Hillary Clinton trounced Trump, winning 95% of the vote to his 3%.

Michigan: Records: 95 Detroit poll books missing for several days | The Detroit News

Detroit elections officials waited several days to deliver nearly 100 poll books to Wayne County officials charged with certifying the presidential election, newly released documents show. County clerk officials on Thursday released a memo to State Elections Director Chris Thomas that said 95 poll books from the 662 precincts weren’t available at the start of the canvass, which began the day after the Nov. 8 election. Five of those poll books, which contain the names of voters and ensure the integrity of elections, were never delivered to county canvassers and presumably remain missing. The revelation comes atop other irregularities that have prompted a state audit. Among other issues, The Detroit News reported this week that voting machines registered more votes than they should have in one-third of all city precincts.

Michigan: Detroit to get new voting machines as city clerk blames state, human error | Detroit Free Press

Five weeks after a national scandal involving broken Detroit voting machines and ineffective poll workers, state Elections Director Chris Thomas said Wednesday evening that the city will get all new voting machines in time for the 2017 mayoral and City Council elections. But broken machines were not the biggest problem Detroit endured election night. Citing a memo he just received, Thomas said there were dozens of other problems that occurred Nov. 8. “I got an e-mail yesterday from Wayne County showing me what the issues were on (Detroit) polling places and precincts, and quite frankly, it was somewhat shocking,” he said. Thomas said his staff soon will head to Detroit to get a better understanding of why the city has such problems running elections and to find ways to help. Among the problems cited in the memo, he said: Ninety-one precinct reports were not delivered on time. County officials had to re-create missing poll books. Five precincts had no poll books, so Detroit election officials had to find voter applications and re-create the books — and hundreds of poll worksheets had either too few or too many ballots.

Michigan: Detroit Voting Machine Failures Were Widespread on Election Day | TIME

More than 80 voting machines in Detroit malfunctioned on Election Day, officials say, resulting in ballot discrepancies in 59% of precincts that raise questions about the reliability of future election results in a city dominated by Democratic and minority voters. “This is not the first time,” adds Daniel Baxter, elections director for the city. “We’ve had this problem in nearly every election that we administer in the city of Detroit.” Baxter says that the machines were tested for accuracy before election day in accordance with state and federal guidelines, but that sometimes the machines “hit up against each other and malfunction” as they’re being transported to the precincts. The machines were optical scanners, meaning they registered and counted the votes marked on paper ballots. Many of the machines jammed over the course of election day, perhaps because Michigan had a two-page ballot this year, which meant that paper ballots were collected but inconsistently recorded by the machines.

Michigan: Too many votes in 37% of Detroit’s precincts | The Detroit News

Voting machines in more than one-third of all Detroit precincts registered more votes than they should have during last month’s presidential election, according to Wayne County records prepared at the request of The Detroit News. Detailed reports from the office of Wayne County Clerk Cathy Garrett show optical scanners at 248 of the city’s 662 precincts, or 37 percent, tabulated more ballots than the number of voters tallied by workers in the poll books. Voting irregularities in Detroit have spurred plans for an audit by Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson’s office, Elections Director Chris Thomas said Monday. The Detroit precincts are among those that couldn’t be counted during a statewide presidential recount that began last week and ended Friday following a decision by the Michigan Supreme Court. Democrat Hillary Clinton overwhelmingly prevailed in Detroit and Wayne County. But Republican President-elect Donald Trump won Michigan by 10,704 votes or 47.5 percent to 47.3 percent.

Michigan: Michigan elections panel weighs value of vote recount | Detroit Free Press

All sides agreed Tuesday that state and local election officials did a generally good job on a statewide presidential recount that was halted by the courts on Wednesday after two and a half days of counting. But testimony before the Board of State Canvassers differed on whether the partial recount requested by Green Party candidate Jill Stein served a useful purpose. Still, the board voted Tuesday 3-1 to formally reject Stein's request for a recount. To Stein attorney Mark Brewer, who formally withdrew Stein's recount request at Tuesday's meeting of the state elections panel, the recount turned up significant problems with uncounted ballots, faulty machines, and large numbers of precincts that could not be recounted under state law.

Michigan: Strict voter ID bills stall in Senate | The Detroit News

The Michigan Senate plans to adjourn for the year Thursday without taking up a strict voter identification proposal, Republican Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof said Tuesday, prompting cheers from protesters outside the state Capitol. Telling reporters the so-called lame-duck session may go down as a “tame duck,” Meekhof added that the upper chamber is unlikely to take up House-approved legislation to boost fines for “mass picketing” or subject state legislators and the governor to public records request laws. The controversial voter ID proposal, approved last week by the Republican-led House, would have required voters to bring photo identification to their local clerk’s office within 10 days if they don’t have an ID on Election Day. Failure to do so would have voided their provisional ballot.

Michigan: State to audit ‘significant’ mismatches in Detroit vote | Associated Press

Michigan's elections bureau ordered an investigation Monday into substantial ballot discrepancies in a small portion of Detroit's voting precincts, after the discovery of a polling place where 300 people voted but only 50 ballots were properly sealed in a container. Since learning of the issue last week during Michigan's presidential recount, state officials have learned of similar "significant mismatch" problems at roughly 20 of Detroit's 490 precincts, said Fred Woodhams, a spokesman for Republican Secretary of State Ruth Johnson. He said there is no reason to think votes were not counted and the differences would not have affected Republican Donald Trump's narrow victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton in the state. Clinton won 95 percent of Detroit's vote. Detroit elections officials told the state that in the one precinct, the 250 missing ballots were left in the tabulator bin, "but we want to verify this," Woodhams said. It was not immediately clear what caused the inconsistencies in other precincts.

Michigan: Stein concedes end of Michigan recount, suggests reform | Associated Press

Officially, history will record President-elect Donald Trump as having won the 2016 presidential race in Michigan by some 10,704 votes. But Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party's presidential candidate in the 2016 election, believes that the numbers would be different if all 4.8 million votes cast in the Wolverine State were recounted. That won't happen, Stein conceded in a rally in downtown Detroit on Saturday, a day after the non-recused members of the Michigan Supreme Court ruled, by a 3-2 margin, against Stein's appeal, leaving the candidate with no recourse. "We may be moving out of the court of law, but we're moving into the court of public opinion," Stein said. … "In the three states where filed recounts, we had Donald Trump, his superPACs and the Republican Party pulling out all the stops," Stein said. "And you have to wonder, why are they doing this? What is Donald Trump afraid of? Either he does not have faith in democracy or he does not believe he won this election."