While waiting for a joint committee between Senate and House lawmakers to finalize budget details, Michigan lawmakers passed a series of bills ranging from a child marriage ban to a sexual assault victim protection law.
A bipartisan bill would extend the right that members of the military have to vote electronically when overseas to their spouses and dependents as well.
Flurry of Democratic legislation also includes mandatory lead testing for young children, alcohol sales inside college stadiums and reforms to prevent child abuse.
Legislators move to approve changes mandated by last year’s Proposal 2, allowing clerks to offer it as long as 29 days. The legislation is expected to head soon to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
Lawmakers work to codify Proposal 2 reforms like early voting into state law. They aren’t the only election-related changes Michigan Democrats are considering.
Our local, decentralized voting system makes Michigan elections incredibly safe and secure. But costs, and the threats posed in recent elections, have risen. Democracy depends on dedicated funding for election administration.
Michigan had one of the highest rates of young voter turnout in 2022. Now, lawmakers want Michigan to join other states in allowing 16 year-olds to pre-register, making them automatically eligible to cast ballots when they turn 18.
Democrats’ swift passage of gun safety, abortion rights and LGBTQ protections earned Michigan the moniker of the ‘anti-Florida.’ But the state has yet to take action to protect undocumented immigrants from regressive laws.
As political divisions escalate, Michigan must ensure polling places are safe from violence or intimidation. It is time to pass a law that bans firearms at or near polling and early voting sites, clerk’s offices and ballot drop boxes.
Adams Township Clerk Stephanie Scott is on the front lines of the doomed fight over the 2020 election. She’s lauded by conspiracy theorists. Closer to home, some residents are tired of her antics.
In their efforts to remove dead voters and residents who have moved, state officials and clerks call on community groups to check their work and make sure no eligible voters have their registrations canceled.
It made for a good narrative, but there was no youth surge in November, records show. In fact, turnout among voters under 30 fell from 2018, when legalizing pot was on the ballot, particularly among men.
Michigan voters approved nine days of early voting and a host of other changes. Many clerks welcome the changes but say more money is needed for drop boxes, staffing and other improvements.
President Biden supports making Michigan one of the first states in the nation to host primaries. Republicans say doing so could hurt state delegates and is like ‘spitting in the face of half of the state.’
The party is wasting no time after regaining control of the Senate and the House. Republicans grouse the breakneck pace is reckless, but Democrats say the GOP is getting a ‘taste of their own medicine.’
Protecting clerks and other election workers is at the top of the secretary of state’s legislative agenda. She’s got support from legislative Democrats.
Candidates vying to lead the Michigan Republican Party now embrace absentee ballots to compete with Democrats. But election officials say that ‘ballot harvesting’ — having a political operative collect ballots from multiple voters — remains illegal in the state.
The secretary of state was honored, along with other elections officials and Capitol police officers, by President Joe Biden in a ceremony marking the two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
