Unlawful Purging Practices in Michigan
Voter Protections Newsletter Volume 3 Issue 1
August 20, 2008
MICHIGAN - Advancement Project has attempted to get Michigan Secretary of State Terry Land and State Elections Bureau Director Chris Thomas to cease practices that violate federal and state election laws and impede voting, but the state has not responded positively. As a result, Advancement Project has taken these matters to the public arena.
Through op-eds and media alerts earlier this month, Advancement Project notified newspaper editors throughout Michigan that massive numbers of state residents could be disenfranchised because of Land’s improper policies.
Through research and discussions with its local coalition partners – the Michigan Election Reform Alliance (MERA), NAACP, and ACORN -- Advancement Project determined that Michigan was conducting a series of unlawful purge programs.
For example, when the Michigan Department of State learns a voter has obtained a driver’s license in another state, it immediately cancels the voter’s registration and instructs the city or township clerk to issue a cancellation notice after the voter has been removed from the voter rolls. According to the Department’s own estimations, more than 280,000 voters are removed from the rolls in this manner, annually.
But this violates federal law. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, commonly known as the “Motor Voter” law, prohibits states from removing voters unless the removal arises from the specific request of the voter, a criminal conviction or mental- incapacity determination related to the voter, death or change in the voter’s residence. If the removal is the result of a change of residence, federal law requires the state or local election official to issue confirmation of registration notices first, before removing voters from the rolls.
Another state election law instructs city and township clerks to immediately reject the applications of new voters who are otherwise qualified to vote whenever their original voter identification cards are returned by the post office as undeliverable. Officials in Detroit estimate that approximately 30,000 voters per year are removed from the rolls in that city alone because of a returned postcard.
Advancement Project has also found that Secretary Land is adding to existing voting barriers by requiring election officials to issue provisional ballots for any voter who does not look like the photo on their identification--even though state law does not allow provisional ballots to be used for such purposes. The decision to issue provisional ballots is unnecessarily burdensome because those ballots will not be counted unless the voter later provides another form of identification proving that they are the person indicated on their identification.
Advancement Project has asked Michigan to abandon this unwise and unlawful policy to avoid disenfranchising voters just because a voter does not look exactly like the picture on their identification. A change in hair color or style, or dramatic weight gain or weight loss, should not become a reason to disenfranchise a voter.
Advancement Project will continue to demand that Land adhere to the law until voting laws are properly followed and voters’ rights are protected.
