House passes permanent absentee voter list legislation

Following action by the House Ethics and Elections Committee, the full House voted 83-22 in support of House Bill 5456 to require that a permanent absentee voter (AV) list be maintained by city and township clerks.

 

The House action resulted from court decisions involving both the former Detroit city clerk and the current Macomb County clerk sending absentee voter (AV) ballot applications to voters 60 years of age or older in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Since those incidents, the Court of Appeals and a Bureau of Elections directive in how to administer the court's ruling stipulate that clerks do not have the statutory authority to mail AV applications to qualified electors unless the voter specifically requests the application verbally or in writing. The directive further said that county clerks do not have the authority to distribute AV ballot applications unless the county clerk is acting in the role of school district election coordinator.

 

The original version of HB 5456, introduced by Rep. Fred Miller (D-Clinton Chtr. Twp.), would have required county, city, township and village clerks to establish the permanent lists and to add qualified electors who request to be included on the list in person, or by telephone, fax or mail. Acceptance by electronic mail was added to the version that passed the full House. MTA and others testified in support of the legislation in committee if changes were included to allow clerks to purge the list of those who fail to vote AV after four years, thereby reducing the costs of mailing AV ballot applications to those not voting by AV ballot; to eliminate the inclusion of county clerks in the process; and to grandfather in existing lists that have been maintained by local clerks.

 

Virtually all of the requested changes were included in the final version of the bill that passed the House. However, the final version did retain the ability of county clerks to mail a notice to each registered elector indicating that the elector may request to be placed on the permanent AV list maintained by either a city or township clerk.  The ability of a village clerk to maintain such a list was removed since it would be duplicative of the efforts of the township clerk.

 

The legislation does allow city or township clerks who maintained a permanent AV list prior to the effective date of the bill to continue to maintain that list as its permanent AV list. This essentially would grandfather in existing permanent AV lists so that those clerks would not have to start the process all over. In addition, every January, clerks would be able to purge those from the permanent AV list who had not requested an AV ballot in any election held in the previous four years. Finally, under the legislation, if a voter on a permanent AV list changes his or her residence, the elector's request to be on a permanent AV list would automatically transfer to their new city or township of residence. The bill now moves over to the Senate.