There are Signs that Clean Up Is Being Legislatively Ignored
By Kristine Christlieb, MFEI Senior Correspondent | January 6, 2025
In predicting election-related legislative trends for 2025, the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) makes no mention of cleaning up the voter rolls, suggesting the topic probably is not on the national legislative radar.
After the November 2024 election, the NCSL published Special Report: A Look at 2025’s Trending Legislative Topics. It included a section dedicated to elections entitled “AI and the Courts Will Factor in Next Year’s Election Laws.”
It identified four “hot topics” related to the conduct of elections:
Artificial Intelligence
Noncitizens and Voting
Ranked Choice Voting (Pro and Con)
Mail/Absentee Ballot Return
NCSL is a powerful, nonpartisan organization that drafts model legislation often adopted in multiple states. If a policy issue gets NCSL’s attention, action is likely to be taken. When an issue is ignored, that too has meaning.
Unfortunately, cleaning up and maintaining the voter rolls did not make NCSL’s “hot topic” list. Some Michigan election integrity volunteers with expertise analyzing the state’s voter data are shocked at what is — NOT trending.
“There would be no need to make these topics ‘hot’ if there were clean voter rolls,” explained Tim Vetter, a data analyst who has devoted the last four years to understanding the fault lines in the state’s qualified voter file (QVF). “All of these items are dependent on clean voter rolls. What’s the main problem involved in all of them? Dirty voter rolls. Dirty voter rolls impact all four of these topics.”
Vetter points to noncitizen voting as an example. “Since Michigan doesn’t require proof of citizenship at the time of registration and everyone who gets a drivers’ license is automatically registered to vote, the voter roll is wide open for noncitizens to vote. Noncitizens who apply for a driver’s license must take specific action to request the state remove them from the voter rolls. The rolls would be free of noncitizen registrants if proof of citizenship were required at the point of registration, not as a clean-up afterthought.”
Vetter is concerned legislators are not looking at dirty voter rolls as the root cause of many election problems.
No State-Wide Voter Roll Reform Initiatives
In the November 2024 election cycle, numerous statewide initiatives addressed noncitizen voting and ranked choice voting. In that regard, NCSL has its finger on the pulse of the nation.
Voters in Colorado, the District of Columbia, Idaho, Missouri, Nevada, and Oregon were asked to give a thumbs up or down to ranked choice voting. Eight states — Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin passed constitutional amendments preventing noncitizen voting.
Voters care about these election issues. They put them on the ballot for a vote, mostly rejecting ranked choice voting and supporting efforts to stop noncitizen voting. But statewide initiatives to clean up the states’ voter rolls were noticeably absent.
Michigan Fair Elections Institute Founder and Chair Patrice Johnson offers a possible explanation. “Federal law already mandates clean voter rolls, and Federal law also prohibits noncitizens from voting. But other Federal laws and Biden Administration Executive Orders have hamstrung election officials from cleaning the rolls and screening for citizenship. They’ve created loopholes and levels of bureaucratic paperwork that make administering these basic principles next to impossible. Federal laws made this mess, and federal laws will have to fix it.”
For one thing, Johnson said elections should be treated like financial transactions. “They should be subject to audits, and violators of election audit principles should be held personally and criminally accountable.”
The Republican National Committee sued the state of Michigan for violating the National Voter Rights Act (NVRA) and failing to keep the voter rolls clean. After a federal judge ruled in October that the RNC lacked standing to sue, the RNC filed an appeal. As of December 2024, the case is pending in the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court.
After Four Years . . .
Following the 2020 election, many voters became convinced something was seriously wrong with how our elections were being conducted. For the first time, perhaps ever, American election processes came under scrutiny.
That scrutiny has continued over the past four years and progress has been made on a number of levels. But dirty voter rolls continue to undermine the system. Vote count discrepancies persist. Election data anomalies continue to baffle analysts.
If, as Vetter says, dirty voter rolls are the root cause of many other election problems, why is voter roll hygiene not a legislative priority?
Vetter has two things on his legislative wish list for Michigan: 1) stop automatic driver’s license voter registration, and 2) follow the example of nine other states and withdraw from the partisan-leaning Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the organization created to provide states with voter roll management services. Michigan is currently a member of ERIC.
Michigan Fair Elections Institute is sponsoring a federal lawsuit against Minnesota for unlawfully sharing drivers’ personal data with the nontransparent ERIC. “A hearing was held on October 14, 2024, and we’re hoping for a favorable ruling at any time,” Johnson said. Listen to Audio of Attorney Erick Kaardal presenting MFEI’s case during federal court hearing HERE (http://media-oa.ca8.uscourts.gov/OAaudio/2024/10/241410.MP3).
ERIC member states and withdrawn states as of July 2024
Michigan Rep. Rachelle Smit, who will be the House’s new Speaker Pro Tempore in the upcoming legislative session, is herself a former clerk with first-hand experience administering elections. In a telephone interview, she told Michigan Fair Elections Institute that clean voter rolls will be a priority for the House. “In my opinion, there is nothing more important. When clean-up attempts were made, Secretary of State Benson put people back on the rolls. Why is that?”
With regard to legislation, Smit said, “We don’t need new state laws, we need enforcement of existing laws. The House will use its subpoena power to force Benson’s hand and make her follow the law.”
Smit also agrees with Vetter that dirty voter rolls are the root cause of many election problems. If we can get the voter rolls cleaned, a lot of “hot topic” problems will cool off fast.
Kristine Christlieb serves as senior correspondent on MFEI's communications team. She publishes Trust but Verify on Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/trustbutverifyreport/p/voter-registration-blitzkrieg?r=2haa2x&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
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