Waterford Today

A controversy over prefilled absentee ballots being mailed to people who no longer live in Michigan has prompted the Senate Elections Committee chair to call for an audit of mail-in votes.

Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, asking for a thorough vetting of ballots after local clerks reported that nonresidents were able to return prefilled absentee ballot applications that had been sent by Benson ahead of the August primary.

“In one community alone, officials received four absentee ballot applications from people the state knew had surrendered their Michigan driver’s license to another state,” Johnson said, according to MiSenateGOP. “People changed their license to another state, but they were still sent an invitation to vote in Michigan’s election by the secretary of state. That hurts integrity.”

Sen. Ruth Johnson | #MiSenateGOP

Last month, Benson appeared before the elections committee to answer questions about how the secretary of state’s office had used part of the $4.5 million in CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act funds to pay for the unsolicited, statewide mass mailing of absentee ballot applications.

Benson acknowledged to the committee that the department could have used the funds differently to address issues with the Qualified Voter File, according to MiSenateGOP.

Johnson noted that no return service was put on the envelopes, nor instructions to return applications sent to the wrong address, which could lead to casting of ballots by unqualified voters.

Johnson, who served as Michigan’s Secretary of State from 2011 to 2018, has said the office needs to fix the issue in advance of the November election, and she asked Benson to provide an update by Tuesday, Sept. 1.

Benson’s unilateral decision effectively opened the door to voter fraud by giving people the opportunity to vote twice, Johnson said. Michigan does not have a mechanism in place to detect double voting.

“Hundreds of thousands of absentee ballot applications were sent to individuals who are likely not eligible to vote,” Johnson told MiSenateGOP. “This mailing was done without legislative approval. It is the local clerks’ job to handle requests for absentee ballot applications to preserve integrity.”