Election officials say inflated Michigan voter rolls are not cause for concern – 9&10 News

Michigan’s inflated voter rolls have come under scrutiny ahead of Election Day, with high-profile figures like Elon Musk promoting what the state says are lies about the potential for fraud in Michigan.

Michigan has 8.4 million registered voters and only 7.9 million voting-age residents, according to the Secretary of State’s office. However, out of 8.4 million registered people, only 7.2 million are active registered voters.

While it’s true that Michigan has nearly 1.2 million voters on its voter rolls who are scheduled to be removed, officials are not allowed to remove most of those inactive voters until after the 2024 cycle, as required by state and federal law.

“It takes a long time before you can cancel someone,” said Suzanne Kanine, Emmet County clerk. “There is a process that must be followed”

If election mail, such as an absentee voter application, is returned by the Postal Service, the voters will be marked as inactive and a cancellation notice will be sent to the same address at that point.

Inactive voters cannot be revoked until they fail to vote in the biennial federal election.

The 2020 mailing of universal absentee ballot applications was the first statewide election mailing in more than a decade and led to hundreds of thousands of potential voters being marked as inactive, according to the Secretary of State.

Given the timeline required by law, voters who were first determined to be inactive in 2020 and did not vote in 2022 would be expelled following the 2024 election.

“That’s why these people are scheduled to be canceled in 2025, because then the time period will have passed, so then it will be okay to go ahead and cancel these people,” Kanine said.

Records are also canceled if the voter moves to another state, requests cancellation, or dies and his death is announced to the public or marked by the Social Security Institution.

The 1.2 million inactive voters are mostly voters who have moved states or voluntarily stopped participating in the election process.

More than 800,000 registrations have been canceled by state officials since 2019, and more than 600,000 will be canceled after this and next elections.

The state is erring on the side of caution with the revocations because it is also a violation of federal law to accidentally remove a qualifying voter registration and conduct a removal program within 90 days of the election.

“As much as you want to maintain contacts, which is what we do, you don’t want to cancel people who shouldn’t be canceled,” Kanine said.

Officials say just because an inactive or deceased person is listed on the Michigan voter rolls does not mean a vote will be cast in that person’s name.

“Each ballot that is cast is linked to a voter and that ballot is verified by that voter’s signature,” Kanine said.