(Source: MIRS.news, Published 07/10/2024) While the Department of State (DOS) has seen a nearly 800 percent increase in total Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests since 2021, according to one line item included in the Fiscal Year (FY) ‘24-25 budget, DOS Senior Press Secretary Cheri Hardmon said the most significant increase has been within the Bureau of Elections (BOE).  

Chris Dewitt, the owner of FOIA Services Michigan, a company that provides subscribers with weekly lists of FOIA requests submitted to Michigan state departments, told MIRS many of those requests are related to the 2020 election. 

Ingham County Clerk Barb Byrum said she believes a similar increase in requests to her county is intended to divert time, energy and resources away from her team.  

To help more quickly respond to the nearly 800 percent increase, the DOS budget included a $669,300 General Fund (GF) appropriation and five full-time positions, with the goal of also assisting with more timely review and processing of petitions.  

When asked about the appropriation, Hardmon said that in 2021, DOS received approximately 581 FOIA requests department-wide. As of July 9, 2024, however, the Department has already received 1,363 requests, 53 percent of which have been received through the new online FOIA portal.  

While FOIA requests are increasing across the department as a whole, Hardmon said the Bureau of Elections (BOE) has seen the most significant increase, with 580 requests for processing received in 2023. So far this year, BOE has received 813 requests, over 50 percent of the department's total.  

Hardmon said the Department anticipates this increased number of requests will continue through this year and into the next, and the increase in election-related FOIA requests has been seen across the country.  

Dewitt said he’s seen an “amazing amount of FOIAs” raising questions about prior elections, most notably in 2020.  

“Based on the FOIAs I’ve read, there’s a large group of people that think the fix was in and are trying to find information from the Secretary of State to back up their premise,” he said.  

He added, “I hope for the sake of this country that regardless of how the election turns out, the faith in the system is in some way restored.”  

Hardmon said local election officials are also seeing increases in the number of election-related FOIA requests received, something Byrum backed up.  

She likened these election-specific requests to “death by a thousand paper cuts,” and said many of them are not requests to accomplish what FOIA was intended for, to disclose information to the public, but are instead attempts to divert time, energy and resources away from election administration.  

“Before 2020, I would get a FOIA request asking about the voter history of some candidate,” she said, “but now I’m receiving requests from election deniers who are weaponizing FOIA…”  

Byrum said the requests, which are under time constraint, are extraordinarily broad, and while many of them relate to the 2020 election, some also request information about sensitive election security measures and technology relating to the tabulating machines.  

All of them take a lot of time to address, and oftentimes her office must get a lawyer involved to see if it's prudent to release the information because of election security concerns, Byrum said.  

Dealing with the requests also takes hours away from programming and preparing for the next election, she said. 

Steve Delie, director of labor policy and transparency and open government for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said he believes the increased number of requests shows more interest in the core purpose of FOIA.   

“It seems like people are interested in how the state and country operate,” he said. “Responding to FOIA requests can be annoying, but being transparent is really important for government entities.”  

Byrum said that, unlike the DOS, her office has not seen an increase in funding.