voting

In 2018, Michiganders voted to pass Proposal 2, a redistricting amendment that would create an independent commission to draw legislative and congressional district maps. Voters Not Politicians, the nonprofit organization that collected signatures to get the amendment on the ballot, is now taking steps to form that commission.

Prior to Prop 2, whichever party was in control in Lansing was responsible for drawing district maps.

Wayne County is switching up the way it will report real-time results for Tuesday’s election. Officials say the county will bypass its usual website because of performance concerns.

The Grand Rapids-based company ElectionSource has hosted Wayne County’s interactive election reporting website since 2017.

In a letter to clerks across the state, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan urged them to make sure voters and poll workers understand that picture identification is not required to cast a ballot.

The civil liberties group says it regularly receives complaints from registered voters who have been incorrectly informed they must have picture ID to vote, and this misinformation can deter or prevent their voting.

The state's voting system needs to be improved to ensure that overseas military ballots are received on time and counted, according to Jocelyn Benson, Democratic candidate for Michigan Secretary of State.

Benson unveiled her military voting plan Tuesday, as part of her pledge "to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat."

The Wayne County Board of Canvassers heard what went wrong with the county’s election results website last Tuesday, as questions and concerns linger about problems with the Aug. 7 primary election.

Michiganders flocked to the polls Tuesday in numbers that haven’t been matched in recent decades.

Replacement absentee ballots were sent out to hundreds of voters in Kalamazoo County this week after a mistake was discovered on the original forms.

MLive reported that ballots sent to voters in four Schoolcraft Township precincts and one Portage precinct listed candidates running for Michigan’s 63rd House of Representatives district race instead of the 61st district.

Michigan's primary election is Tuesday, and already this year's vote has garnered a lot of attention.

It may soon be easier to register to vote in Michigan.

Nine in ten people eligible to vote in Michigan are already registered. Most registered when they got a driver’s license or state identification card.

Nevertheless, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson wants to allow people to register to vote online through the state’s existing Express SOS software program.

A ballot campaign will begin collecting signatures to add a voting rights amendment to the state constitution.

The effort is backed by the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, and the Detroit branch of the NAACP.

The ACLU’s Kary Moss says the proposal would allow early voting and make it easier for people to vote absentee.

“If somebody wants to vote absentee, they have to be over 60 years old, they have to have an excuse," Moss said. "This proposal would allow for no-excuse absentee voting.”

A petition drive hopes to put a voters’ rights amendment to the state constitution on the November ballot.

The amendment would let people vote absentee without giving a reason. It would allow early voting. And it would guarantee the right to vote a party-line ticket with one mark on the ballot. 

“We need to make sure that voting is accessible to all citizens and that everyone’s vote gets counted,” said Judy Karendjeff with the League of Women Voters.

A lawsuit filed Thursday in Wayne County Circuit Court alleges Detroit’s city clerk violated election law.

Detroiter Anita Belle says she was trying to challenge the legitimacy of potentially more than a thousand absentee ballots. She says there are voters registered at addresses that are actually vacant lots owned by the Detroit Land Bank. Belle had hoped to challenge any ballots from those addresses. But she says she wasn’t allowed to.

President Trump's voter fraud commission has requested voter registration data from all 50 states, and many Secretaries of State are refusing, in full or in part.

But the commission will apparently get the information that is public from Michigan.

Detroit unveiled new digital voting machines to volunteers this weekend after years of faulty machines that slowed down the voting process.

The machines are a part of a statewide effort to replace all voting systems by 2018. Voting machines in Michigan have not been replaced in over a decade.

Detroit ordered 700 new machines, which will be installed before the August primaries.

State senators are making voting laws an issue this year. A mostly Democratic group of senators has introduced a set of bills they say will make voting easier for everyone.

One of the bills would allow people to preregister to vote when they turn 16 – as long as they have a driver’s license or a state ID card.

Democratic Senator Steve Bieda is a bill sponsor. Calling the legislation innovative, he said the state needs to keep up with modern times when it comes to voting. 

More than a decade since Michigan last replaced its voting machines, the state is spending up to $82 million on new voting machines over the next two years.

“You know, they’re computers, right?” says Chris Thomas, the Michigan elections director. “And like any kind of hardware and software, they’ve got a shelf life.

“It’s pretty standard across the country that 10 years is when you start reaching that outer limit and start seeing a few more problems on Election Day and whatnot.”