New Secretary of State "Election Email" System to be Launched:  The Department of State is pleased to announce the August 27, 2008 release of a new email system called "Election Email."  The new email system will offer a number of new features and capabilities that are unavailable under the current email system.  Highlights of some of the new features and implementation plans are detailed below:

• The Bureau of Elections will provide an email account and email address in a standard format to every county, city and township in Michigan.  Selected villages will also be receiving an email account and address.   There will be no cost for this service.

• "Election Email" may be accessed from any computer that has Internet service.  This means that you will be able to access your "Election Email" account from your home or office.  QVF equipment is not needed to access your "Election Email" account.

• Some existing email addresses will change slightly. The current email addressing system utilizes the name of the jurisdiction which has led to confusion for jurisdictions that share the same name.  As a remedy, a county code will be added to these email addresses.  In addition, the "MT" designation will be dropped from all email addresses.  During the transition period, which may take up to three months, both the old and new email addresses may be used.  Jurisdictions affected by an email address change will receive a separate communication from the Bureau of Elections that will contain their new email address and instructions for accessing the new account.

• The Bureau of Elections will create and make available several new email address groups to all system users.  The special email groups will include 1) county clerks 2) township clerks 3) city clerks 4) village clerks that conduct a September election 5) ES&S voting system users; 6) Premier voting system users and 7) Sequoia voting system users.

• Some additional features include: 1) automatic forwarding to one or more outside email addresses 2) a common calendar that will be used by the Bureau of Elections to post election related deadlines and events 3) "Zimlets" that can be used to store frequently accessed websites and 4) state of the art spam protection and junk mail filters which will be updated on a regular basis. 

Use:  This is a government funded email system.  As a consequence, the use of this system for campaigning and electioneering is prohibited.  While this system is intended to foster open communication among Michigan's election officials, you should be aware of FOIA and the fact that some participants may broadcast your comments beyond the members of our email groups.

Single Source for Communications:  The new "Election Email" system will give the Bureau of Elections and Michigan's election community a single communication vehicle for exchanging information and for forwarding all future "News You Can Use" and "Election News" issues.

August 27, 2008 Implementation Date:  The new "Election Email" system will become available on Wednesday, August 27^th.  Jurisdictions with existing QVF email accounts will be able to continue to access their email in the usual manner.  All other jurisdictions will be able to access their new accounts on that date.  In addition, as noted above, you will be able to access your email from any computer with a functioning Internet browser.  Additional information and instructions, including email addresses, user names and passwords, will be forwarded to all jurisdictions by postal mail this week.