Fact Checks

Michigan’s elections are carried out by the 1,520 city and township clerks across the state. They are elected or appointed at the local level, and come from both major political parties or have no party affiliation. They are public servants, do their jobs with the highest integrity, and are committed to fair elections in their communities.

Additionally, 83 county clerks play critical roles in administering elections by managing county level contracts with election vendors, generating and distributing election materials, programming election equipment, supporting and supplementing the work of local clerks, and providing information to voters.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections provides guidance and standards to all clerks to ensure elections are carried out uniformly and in accordance with state and federal law across the state.

The Secretary of State is the state’s chief election officer. She has broad authority over elections, but does not directly administer them.

The Bureau of Elections mailed applications to vote absentee to all Michiganders registered to vote who were not already going to receive one from their county, city or township clerk. Some clerks had already decided to mail applications to their voters, and some voters had already placed themselves on permanent absentee lists, which ensures they are mailed an application ahead of every election. Because many Michiganders had never voted absentee before, the mailing from the state included instructions on how to do so. 

The mailing went to both active and inactive registered voters. In accordance with federal law, inactive registered voters include those who have not voted recently, and those who may have moved, but have not been confirmed by their local election clerk as having moved out of their jurisdiction. By mailing the application to inactive voters, the state guaranteed equal access to voters who may have simply chosen not to vote in recent elections. It also advanced the process to clean up the Michigan voter registration list, as many applications were returned undeliverable, providing notice that the voter may have died or moved for local clerks to confirm before cancelling their registrations. 

When more people participate in our democracy, it better reflects the will of the people. For decades, Michigan has had one of the best motor-voter systems in the country, resulting in a great voter registration rate among eligible citizens. Voters made the system even stronger when they amended our state constitution in 2018 to require automatic voter registration. Unless they opt out, all eligible citizens are now registered when conducting a driver’s license or state identification transaction with our office. Additionally, residents who are already registered have their registration updated every time they conduct such a transaction with the department. 

In Michigan, absentee ballots are not counted until a voter has twice provided signatures matching the one on file with their local election clerk – first on their application and then on their absentee ballot envelope. Hundreds of ballots were rejected because they lacked a matching signature. Similarly, upon arriving at a polling place, voters are asked to provide photo ID or sign an affidavit confirming their identity and eligibility to vote.

Voting in another person’s name is illegal – regardless of if it is the other person’s maiden name or the person has died or moved. Charges were brought against people who attempted to apply for the ballot of someone else – and those applications were rejected.

Anyone with evidence of voter fraud should report it to law enforcement in writing so that it can be investigated and referred for prosecution.

While many states allowed their clerks days or weeks to prepare absentee ballots prior to Election Day – and Florida gave its clerks a month – the Michigan state Legislature voted to give our clerks just 10 hours to do very limited preparation. Because of this, and the widespread use of absentee ballots, it was announced prior to the general election that complete results would not be available on Election Night. To expedite the process as much as possible, clerks worked around the clock, bolstered by Department of State supports including the recruitment of more than 30,000 election workers and provision of federal funds for automatic envelope openers and more ballot tabulation machines.

Many smaller jurisdictions with fewer voters began reporting all their results first on election night, as they had fewer ballots to count and may have been able to count absentee ballots at their polling places. However, many larger jurisdictions first reported only the results of in-person voting at polling places, as they continued to count absentee ballots at separate locations – absent voter counting boards – specifically for absentee ballots. When they did report their absentee ballot results in large batches (as is always done),  some wrongly assumed that they had counted all those ballots in a short amount of time, when in fact they had been counting since Election Day morning.

Further, because President Trump had encouraged his voters to vote in person at polling places, early returns that did not include many absentee ballots showed him in the lead, and that lead diminished and was overcome as absentee ballots, which favored President-elect Biden, were counted and reported.

In many larger jurisdictions, absentee ballots that arrived on Election Day were marked as received and put through security checks at clerk offices prior to being brought to absent voter counting boards. If a ballot arrived at a clerk’s office at 8 p.m., it may not move through the process and be sent to the counting board for several hours. This is why, in cities including Detroit, ballots arrived at counting boards several hours after polling places had closed. 

Numerous claims of wrongdoing or “irregularities” have been made about Detroit’s election and absentee counting board. However, these have all been answered by election officials, including Chris Thomas, the former Michigan Bureau of Elections director, who oversaw state elections for decades under both Republican and Democratic secretaries of state, and served as a senior advisor to the Detroit clerk’s office ahead of and during the 2020 general election. Additionally, the claims have been rejected by multiple judges in the state. Wayne County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Kenny, originally appointed by Republican Governor John Engler, found many of the claims to be “incorrect and not credible.”  More detailed explanations of specific false claims made about election administration in Detroit and elsewhere in Michigan are available below.

• All absentee ballot envelopes that were received were stamped by clerks’ offices with the date they arrived. However, in some cases, this date was not entered into the computer tracking system. Therefore, when these ballots were encountered later, the dates that had been marked on their envelopes was entered into the computer system. In Michigan, ballots themselves are not stamped with dates, and postmarks are not recorded at all, as Michigan law does not allow ballots that arrive after 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted, regardless of postmark.

• Absentee ballots were not scanned multiple times inappropriately in Detroit. This was only done if ballots could not be read by the tabulation machine. Had ballots been counted multiple times, the number of total ballots counted would be higher than the total number of voters who voted, but in Detroit slightly fewer ballots were counted than voters whose names were in pollbooks (due to common clerical errors, as explained below). 
   
• When there are more or fewer ballots than voters in the pollbook without explanation, the precinct is deemed “out of balance.” These clerical errors are common in precincts across the state and nation. In Detroit, at least 72% of precincts were in balance or explained in the general election of 2020, compared to just 42% in the general election of 2016. It is more common for precincts to be out of balance without explanation in counties with large populations, as clerks and bipartisan boards of canvassers have far more precincts to work through but the same amount of time to do so as smaller jurisdictions. 
   
• Although it can be difficult to recruit Republican challengers in Detroit – just as it is difficult to recruit Democratic challengers elsewhere in the state – there were always challengers from both parties in Detroit’s absentee ballot counting board. Further, some windows were covered to stop those outside from improperly filming the people and private information in the counting board, while other windows were left uncovered to ensure additional transparency.
   
• No ballot tabulation machines were connected to the internet at Detroit’s counting board. The machines were networked locally to each other and the adjudication machines by ethernet cable, and so some people wrongly believed they were online. They were not.

• By telling voters that they could vote straight ticket, Detroit election workers reminded voters of a convenience offered to Michigan voters. Workers should not suggest what party to vote straight ticket for, but can assist voters even if the voters have voluntarily told the workers who they want to vote for. In 2016, nearly 97% of Detroiters who voted cast ballots for Hillary Clinton. In 2020, 95% voted for President-elect Biden.
   
• Michigan law does not require citizens to show photo identification to vote. If they don’t have ID they have the option to sign an affidavit stating they are not in possession of photo ID, and can then be given a ballot to vote. Michigan law states that the ballots provided to voters who sign such an affidavit are not provisional ballots and shall be counted like all other ballots.
   
• When a voter is eligible to have their ballot counted but the voter’s name does not appear on the voter list (for example, if a voter returned their absent voter ballot after the absent voter ballot list in the pollbook was generated), the voter’s name is added to a supplemental list of voters in the pollbook. In some cases, election workers add a placeholder birthdate such as 1/1/1900 if the voter’s birthdate (which is not needed to count the ballot on Election Day) is not known. Some who viewed this process wrongly believed voters were being registered to vote with fake birth dates. This is not correct – the voters were not being registered (they were already registered), and the voter’s actual birthdate is known and kept by the election clerk in the voter file. 
   
• While Michigan law bars election workers and voters from wearing clothing or accessories that express support for a specific candidate or party in the election being conducted, the law allows them to wear items that show support for other groups and causes, and former candidates or officials no longer running for office, such as, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, Barack Obama or Ronald Reagan.
   
• If ballots are filled out in a way that tabulators cannot read them, state law requires that bipartisan teams adjudicate them to determine voter intent.
   
• Voter turnout in Michigan increased by 8.7 percent in the general election of 2020 compared to 2016. All states saw turnout increase and 13 states had larger increases than Michigan. 

All election materials, including ballots and tallies – which are always on paper in Michigan – and countless other materials, have been preserved to allow subsequent reference and investigation. The Bureau of Elections sent a memo to clerks following certification of the election reminding them, among other things, to delete voter information from e-pollbooks to protect voter privacy, as the e-pollbooks (which are laptop computers) will not be used until a subsequent election and the electronic copy of the information is not needed. This is the same memo that has been sent to clerks for years. Before data is deleted, clerks have already printed a copy from each e-pollbook as a securely stored record. 

State and local election officials have conducted dozens of post-election audits of the 2020 general election, all of which have demonstrated the integrity of the election. In all, more than 200 audits will be carried out – more than ever before in state history – to affirm voters’ faith in the election and identify areas for improvement of future election administration. More detailed information about Michigan’s post-election audits is available here.