New OAG report affirms Michigan's voter rolls are secure and accurate

LANSING, Mich. – A report released today by the state Office of Auditor General (OAG) shows that Michigan’s voter rolls are more accurate than ever before thanks to comprehensive reforms and improvements made by the Michigan Department of State (MDOS) under Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson.

“The OAG report provides even more evidence that state and local election officials are going above and beyond to ensure Michigan’s voter rolls are complete, up to date, and accurate,” said Deputy Secretary of State Aghogho Edevbie. “Our department has invested significant resources and implemented meaningful reforms to make our system the best in the nation. We will never stop working to improve our policies and process, retaining well-earned confidence in our state’s secure, accessible elections.”

“Michigan is one of the nation’s leaders in ensuring secure elections while protecting access to the ballot box for eligible voters,” said Neil Ubriani, chief of policy at the Institute for Responsive Government. “Thanks to recent upgrades implemented by the Department of State, Michigan uses the information that customers already provide during routine state agency transactions and efficiently identifies and removes ineligible applicants from any voter registration process before it starts. This vital tool is designed to automatically filter out noncitizens from any registration opportunity, helping to ensure Michigan’s voter rolls remain up to date and accurate.”

The OAG report comes after the agency conducted an examination of selected processes used by MDOS to update and maintain the state’s Qualified Voter File (QVF). The examination was required under a provision included in the FY 2026 budget bill (PA 22 of 2025). Michigan’s QVF is a statewide database of more than 8.3 million registered voters maintained in real time by more than 1,600 state and local election officials handling millions of pieces of data.

The OAG examination found that 99.99% of QVF entries are fully complete with all required data. The match between QVF data and data in the state's driver and vehicle record system (CARS) has dramatically increased since 2021 with 99.7% of the records in CARS identical to those in QVF. Where there are differences, they are usually things like shortened versions of a person’s name (ex: Teri vs. Teresa).

The number of registrations cancelled due to deaths closely tracks the total deaths in Michigan in that given year. For example, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (MDHHS) reported 101,672 Michigan residents over age 19 died in 2024. MDOS cancelled 100,228 voter registrations that year because the voter had died. Every single voter marked as deceased who cast a ballot at an early voting site in 2024 had died in the 10 days before the election – which was during the state’s early voting period.

The OAG also affirms that a person’s citizenship status in CARS is not, on its own, a reliable way to determine if a person is an eligible voter. Many of the registered voters listed as “noncitizens” in the CARS system actually turned out to be citizens once investigated. CARS records do not automatically update when a person takes their oath of citizenship. Between 14,000 and 16,000 new American citizens naturalize every year in Michigan according to the Department of Homeland Security. These tens of thousands of Michiganders, who are now naturalized citizens and legally registered to vote, may still have noncitizen records in CARS. Noncitizen records are audited and compared against the voting logs after every major election, as part of the department's efforts to ensure only eligible citizens cast ballots. Thanks to reforms Secretary Benson introduced during her administration, millions of Michigan drivers no longer come to Secretary of State branches every year, so it may be several years after someone becomes a citizen that they update their records in person at a branch.

The OAG report also includes details on MDOS’s continued progress and advancement in voter list maintenance, including:

• quarterly reconciliation between CARS and QVF
• improved security controls for accessing electronic pollbook data
• increased review of post-election audits
• formal certification program for clerks on post-election results

In addition to the improvements listed in the report, the Bureau of Elections implemented a new administrative rule allowing state election officials to contact registered voters who have not cast a ballot in 20 years or more. If the inactive voter does not respond, their registration is cancelled after two federal election cycles in accordance with federal law. Over 180,000 registrations are now slated for future cancellation under the new rule. Each year, more inactive registrations will hit the 20-year mark and will be added to the cancellation countdown.

Learn more about Michigan’s comprehensive voter list maintenance process: Voter registration cancellation procedures

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