Waterford Today

State Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly) spoke about the absentee ballot request controversy during an interview with The Big Show with Michael Patrick Shiels on June 18. 

She pointed out that while anyone can vote from home, the issue is “when you send absentee ballots to many people that are dead, moved, we have so far two non-citizens, a 16-year-old. We’ve had hundreds of complaints in less than a week,” she told The Big Show. 

As the chair of the Elections Committee in the Senate, Johnson and other officials urge anyone who receives an incorrect ballot request to alert her via email: senRJohnson@senate.michigan.gov. 

Sen. Ruth Johnson | #MiSenateGOP

“It’s very concerning because I think it opens the door to lack of integrity in our elections,” she said during her interview with The Big Show. “It really does open the door to misuse or fraud.”

While the Secretary of State's office has said that it will catch any erroneous requests for a ballot, Johnson said there is still plenty of room for concern. 

“First of all, it’s local clerks that conduct elections, not the Secretary of State. They have 34 people for the whole state,” she told Shiels of The Big Show. “The problem is, you’ll have some high-populated cities that get over 100,000 absentee ballot requests. To look at the signature, they have no handwriting specialists. Many of them don’t have time to look at the vast majority of them.”

She noted that during her days as Secretary of State, she didn’t get any reports on erroneous signatures, even though she probably should have.

She went on to say that it’s against the law for officials to send out absentee ballot request forms unsolicited. The Secretary of State’s manual also bars clerks from sending absentee applications without written consent from the voter.