Election audits can’t catch everything

In a recent decision, Michigan Court of Claims Judge Christopher Murray ruled that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has the right to set procedures for post-election examinations and denied GOP requests for a mandatory forensic audit of absentee ballot signatures. Benson said earlier this month that the audit performed by clerks across the state is the most comprehensive ever conducted. Houghton County Clerk Jennifer Kelly concedes that it won’t catch everything though.

I moved from Michigan to Wisconsin in August of 2019 before returning in January for the News Director position here at Houghton Community Broadcasting. I voted in four Wisconsin elections legally in 2020, starting with the State Supreme Court primary contest. Mid-summer I received an absentee ballot request from the Michigan Secretary of State’s Office. It was addressed to my prior residence in Huron County. It was forwarded automatically by the United States Post Office, as was all my mail.

When I moved, I changed my legal address, instituted mail forwarding, got a new driver’s license, vehicle title, plates, and registered for auto insurance in my new state. Kelly says that this should have automatically led to Wisconsin talking to Michigan to have me removed from the voter rolls here.

A check of Michigan’s voter registration database shows that never happened.

I called the city clerk last summer who oversees my former Michigan address and was told that they had been inundated with similar inquiries. She said that only the Secretary of State’s office could have me stricken from the rolls in Michigan. Kelly says this was bad advice, and the qualified voter file can be updated locally.

Instead, I was under the impression that a form had been filled out that essentially acts as an affidavit that I no longer reside at that particular residence and could be used by SOS staff to update the voter system from their Lansing office. At the time, COVID-19 had closed the agency entirely. All calls were picked up by a robotic message and the only option was to leave a voicemail that was never returned. Nothing I did worked to remove myself from the rolls of a state I didn’t live in. When I asked Kelly if there was any way for the system to catch me if I had illegally cast a ballot in Michigan last year, she said the only check is my signature. For obvious reasons, that is a hurdle that I can clear. My signature has remained relatively consistent throughout the years.

My father passed away on March 26th, 2002. You can verify this through an online obituary and death certificates on file with various agencies. They have to be submitted as soon as possible after someone passes due to tax concerns. A person’s estate is subject to dramatically different treatment than when they are living. There’s also probate court and other official proceedings. The mortgage on our house, vehicle titles, etc. all must be updated and put into the name of a surviving spouse. As of August of 2020, my father was still classified as an active voter in Wayne County. My brother was able to call and have him removed from the rolls. That was after the primaries, meaning that a man who had been dead for over 18 years had an absentee ballot application sent to him using outdated information. Our family home was sold after my mom also died young, in November of 2012.

My mom was successfully removed from the voter registration database. She was correctly categorized as inactive. The errors that do occur are random, but they exist, and the data is the linchpin of our system of checks and balances.

If the rolls aren’t cleaned up though, that information is stale. My father does not have a driver’s license. Even if you allowed for the one he had been carrying upon his death to remain active, they have a firm expiration date. It would have needed to be renewed around a decade ago at the latest.

My grandmother suffers from advanced dementia. She will be 92 years old in August. At this point, she has forgotten how to speak. She was also mailed an absentee ballot application. Three successive generations of my family, in which two of them were ineligible, and the last had to rely on my aunt to make a decision that she should not be participating in the current election because she is incapacitated, all could have easily been turned into cast ballots.