Clerks told not to notify voters of invalid absentee ballots

Clerks in the 20th state Senate district have been directed by the Michigan Secretary of State’s office not to send notices to absentee ballot voters regarding the death of State Rep. and Democratic Senate nominee Robert Jones. If those voters cast their ballot for Jones they must request a new ballot in writing, or the vote for Jones will not count.

Anna Goodsell, clerk for Comstock Township, wanted to send out a notice to all voters in her precinct to inform them that if they had cast their vote for Jones, it would no longer count because of his death. She wanted to inform them that they had to request a new absentee ballot in writing in order to have their vote counted.

She was told by the Kalamazoo County Clerk Tim Snow that the Michigan Secretary of State’s office had ordered the clerks not to send out such a notice.

“We did indeed tell them not to do so,” says Ken Silfven, spokesperson for the election bureau of the Secretary of State’s office. “Election officials have to be careful as to what they send out. It would be difficult to send something directly to voters that doesn’t seem like it’s giving one candidate an edge over another by invoking his name and highlighting his candidacy. That could easily be construed by voters or other political factions of advocating for a particular candidate.”

Silfven says the order does not prohibit the clerks from issuing press releases to the local media, or the Democratic Party from sending out notices to absentee ballot voters. The order from the Secretary of State was not a written order, it was a verbal order, Silfven says. The state also issued a two page memo on procedures dealing with the death of Jones and his replacement on the ballot, Bobby Hopewell, the Mayor of Kalamazoo.

Jones died unexpectedly Oct. 17. The local Democratic party officials then scrambled to announce his replacement, which by unanimous consent of the executive board members of the party in the 20th district was Bobby Hopewell.

That order directs the clerks of the county to reprint the ballots replacing Jones’ name with Hopewell’s. For absentee ballot voters, they will be required to fill out a short written request for a new ballot. The old ballot will be destroyed.

Goodsell says she thinks voters should be informed as directly as possible on how to cast a valid ballot under such unusual circumstances. “I’m not concerned there will be disenfranchisement of voters,” she said. “I’m just concerned everyone gets accurate information. We certainly want every vote to count.”

Goodsell says her office sent out 1200 absentee ballots and had received 540 of those ballots back at the time of Jones’ death. More ballots have arrived in the mail since that time. She says there is a system in place to track the ballots cast already, and remove them as “spoiled ballots” and replace them with a new ballot with Hopewell’s name.

Voting rights activists say the refusal to notify voters of what they need to do to cast a valid ballot under these rare circumstances will inevitably result in some voters not getting the chance to change their vote after their candidate died.

“The idea that a notice can’t be sent to absentee voters who have already mailed their ballots in without favoring one candidate or another is wrong. Non-profit organizations who do non-partisan election work communicate with voters every day without violating the law and understand how that’s done,” says David Holtz, executive director of Progress Michigan. “Perhaps Terry Lynn Land should call one of those election professionals up for some guidance.”