I am writing today to announce the closure of the Michigan Messenger. After four years of operation in Michigan, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news into a single site, The American Independent at Americanindependent.com. This is part of a shift in strategy, towards new forms [...]
An abstinence-only presentation provided to numerous school districts in Calhoun and Eaton Counties in October of this year provided false and misleading information to students about HIV, experts allege.
Two county registers of deeds filed a class action lawsuit Monday on behalf of Michigan’s 83 counties alleging that the Mortgage Electronic Registration Services owes millions of dollars in property title transfer taxes.
Despite evidence of the impact of mercury on children and public health, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette last month joined with 24 other state attorneys general in filing a lawsuit to scuttle new EPA regulations that would reduce mercury emissions from power plants.
As reported by Michigan Messenger’s Eartha Melzer yesterday and updated this afternoon, the Michigan Republican Party is planning, was planning or secretly remains planning to challenge voters based on foreclosure activity for properties at which voters may be registered.
In the story, Melzer quoted J. Gerald Hebert, a former voting rights litigator for the U.S. Justice Department who now runs the Campaign Legal Center, a Washington, D.C.-based public-interest law firm:
“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote. Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.”
Indeed, even if a person’s home has been foreclosed upon, and they have been evicted from that home, Michigan election law 168.507a allows a voter to vote at their last-registered voter address.
“(2) A registered and qualified elector of this state who has moved from the city or township in which he or she is registered to another city or township within the state after the sixtieth day before an election or primary election shall be permitted to vote in the election or primary election at the place of last registration upon the signing of a form containing an affidavit stating that the move has taken place. This subsection shall apply if the county in which the elector is registered has not implemented the county file as the official file pursuant to section 509e.”
Additionally, a person’s registration outweighs even the state’s Homestead Exemption Affidavit — signed by a property owner under penalty of perjury — as the true place of residence and eligibility.
How do I know this? In 2001, I brought suit in Ingham County Circuit Court to have Dr. Olga Holden removed from the Lansing Community College Board of Trustees because she was not a resident of the district. My evidence was her Homestead Exemption Affidavit signed for a property at Gull Lake in southwest Michigan. But the Circuit Court and the Appeals Court both ruled that the voter registration outweighed the affidavit.
As such, even if a person were in the midst of a foreclosure, their voter registration– not the property records and affidavits — is more important for determining voting eligibility.
Do you know where to vote on Election Day? Do you know what to bring with you? Get comprehensive voter information for your state here.
Sign up for our email newsletter
Pingback: Lets steal an election | hell's handmaiden