The Republican National Committee on Thursday asked the Michigan Court of Claims to declare ahead of the Nov. 5 general election that absentee voter ballots cast be rejected if local election officials fail to affix a written statement to the envelopes they arrive in saying the voter signature on the envelope has been verified.
Such a provision, which the lawsuit argued is required by state law, "preserves the purity of elections and guards against abuses," the RNC lawyers said.
Angela Benander, a spokesman for Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office, which oversees the administration of elections in the state and issues guidance to local clerks, dismissed the lawsuit as raising an issue a short time before absentee ballots go out that could be easily dealt with as a "simple administration procedure" and said clerks have already been instructed to contact the Elections Division with any questions on how to handle the envelopes.
"This lawsuit could have been an email," Benander said. "This is not about the law, our processes or election administration. It’s about getting a headline that causes voters to doubt the integrity of our election processes. It’s an abuse of our judicial system and a waste of all our time."
Absentee ballots will begin being available − and some clerks will begin verifying their return receipt − on Sept. 26 in Michigan, two weeks from Thursday. In Michigan's midterm elections in 2022, some 1.8 million people voted by absentee ballots statewide; more than 3 million absentee votes were cast in the 2020 election in the state.
