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By Katherine Dailey, Michigan Advance
With just over two weeks until the Nov. 3 general election, anxieties over federal interference on Election Day, as well as fears about the security of casting a ballot in the first place, are ever-present in conversations about election integrity in Michigan.
Advocates and nonprofits are working to assuage those concerns — as Wayne State University election law professor Michael Brady said in a call with Keep Our Republic on Wednesday, “This election is business as usual.”
Andrew Walchuk, the policy director and counsel for Common Cause, attributed this to what he described as President Donald Trump’s villainization of election officials and even individual voters and communities who he dislikes.
“He has created this environment of people who are engaged in a way that they’ve never been engaged before,” Walchuk said. “We have seen outreach across the country and so many of our states, from partner organizations that never have been involved in elections, just small community groups that are wondering what can we do, and for me that really says that people care about our democratic system, people care about their right to vote, and they’re not going to take kindly to someone who is trying to tear it all down.”
Different groups are taking different approaches to convincing Michigan’s voters that the ballots they cast on or leading up to Nov. 3 will be counted securely and fairly.
Lansing City Clerk Chris Swope said in an Oct. 13 press conference that the “sheer number of different municipalities” involved in Michigan’s largely decentralized election system provide an important check for election security.
“The county clerk, the city and township clerks work together. The county programs the election, and then the clerks execute it. There’s a separation of duties that provides additional security,” he said. “Not only do we have over 1,600 clerks in Michigan, but we have thousands upon thousands of election workers that are your neighbors working in the polling places on Election Day, and those are identified by party. And there are certain duties that have to be done by a Democrat and a Republican.”
Walchuk’s organization, Common Cause, is also part of a broader Election Protection Coalition that is maintaining a voter hotline to assist voters with casting their ballot and to report any concerns that they have on Election Day, which Walchuk described as having “first line responders on the ground for any issues that might be coming up for voters.”
“What we want to ensure, and what we believe will happen because of efforts like our organizations and so many allies in this space, we want to make sure that voters feel safe and secure, exercising their right to vote,” he said. “I think that we will be able to ensure that with the work of you know the thousands of volunteers who become part of this program during the election period.”
Two potential threats from the federal government are also front of mind for many voters experiencing election anxieties — the presence of federal agents, especially armed ones, at polling places, and the weaponization of the U.S. Postal Service by the Trump administration to limit the power of mail-in voting.
Walchuk distinguished between armed federal agents from agencies like ICE or the Department of Homeland Security, who are not allowed to be present at polling places, and standard election monitors, generally from the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, which has existed since 1957.
“What really worries me is the fact that the civil rights division has been decimated by this administration, and so what we are seeing is a massive number of folks who just do not have the experience and training,” Walchuk added. “The idea that some of these monitors, whether intentionally or unintentionally, will disregard the rules governing third-party observers in the state where they are, and will try to assert some level of authority that they do not legally have, that piece does worry me.”
Clinton Township Clerk Kim Meltzer and Kent County Clerk Lisa Lyons said in the press conference hosted by Keep Our Republic that they intend to rely on local law enforcement in the case of federal agents on the ground on Election Day, though Meltzer emphasized, “It’s not likely to happen.”
“I am not law enforcement. It’s not my background. So I’m grateful that we do have a police department in some contract with the local, or the county sheriff. Clerks can rely upon local law enforcement in that capacity,” Meltzer said. “Workers want to make sure they’ve got all the tools necessary to service their constituency, and we provide that for them.”
Walchuk also said that when talking to voters, he makes sure to highlight the court victories that have blocked Trump administration policies that would make mail-in voting harder.
“The U.S. Postal Service has been handling mail voting for decades, and this is a process that they know how to do, and they have already stated that they will once again, as they have in past years, take extraordinary measures to ensure that ballot mail is delivered on time. So that gives me confidence that is something that USPS has done in the past,” he said. “What I really blame is the Trump administration for introducing all of this confusion about mail voting and for creating a distraction as it tried to add a new duty on top of all of the other duties that the USPS has of delivering election mail, of deciding whose mail actually gets delivered, but that was blocked.”
Swope similarly said that he had been concerned about changing the role of the postal service to serve as the “gatekeeper of ballots,” but those policies were not enacted.
“I always say the United States postal system is a great institution, but they are not infallible. So we have occasional reports of ballots just not making it to the voter. What I try to do is keep in communication with the voter,” he said. “That communication is key as we get close to an election. I email folks a reminder just so that if they mailed it and they thought it came and it didn’t, that’s their flag. The communication is key, but by and large the post office does well. But there are just occasional mishaps.”
Kaitlyn Wilkins, the founder of the Screaming Eagle Creative Collective nonprofit running the In Michigan We Trust campaign, said that the key message that she is seeking to get across to voters in terms of trust in absentee voting is the fact that it is enshrined in the Michigan Constitution, with safeguards in place.
“Your signature gets verified two times: once on your application, once from your return envelope against the vote your signature on file,” she said, echoing Swope. “There’s video monitored drop boxes, and you can track your ballot like a package and sign up for email alerts from the time you mail it to the time it gets counted.”
Other advocacy organizations are focused on specific portions of the elections process in their work to ensure to voters that the process is fair and secure.
One such group is the Michigan Election Observation Project, which launched an advisory board and began an effort to recruit hundreds of Michiganders to serve as election observers in 15 counties — Genesee, Macomb, Oakland, St. Joseph, Kalamazoo, Berrien, Ottawa, Kent, Washtenaw, Leelanau, Antrim, Marquette, Ingham, Wayne and Muskegon.
“At a time when we have hotly contested elections days away, we’re pleased to have MEOP in our state to help provide even greater transparency and trust in our elections. The public benefits when credible, fact-based information is readily available,” said former Gov. John Engler in a press release announcing the election observation effort.
Looking past Election Day, the Election Truth Alliance is helping voters understand state laws around recounts and audits and providing information to candidates and voters about what can justify a recount request.
— Michigan Advance is an affiliate of State Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. To support, its journalism, donate at michiganadvance.com/donate