(Source: MIRS.news, Published 09/17/2024) Local governments will be banned from implementing election practices or policies that could arguably make it more difficult for minority Michiganders to vote under legislation approved today along party-lines.

Under the Michigan Voting Rights Act (MVRA), a voter could bring legal action against a local government for relocating or closing early voting sites, absentee ballot drop boxes or other election locations if the voter can argue that the change disadvantaged people of color.

The main sponsors of the bill package were Senate Elections and Ethics Chair Jeremy Moss (D-Southfield) and Sens. Darrin Camilleri (D-Trenton), Stephanie Chang (D-Detroit) and Erika Geiss (D-Taylor). No Republicans in the chamber backed the bills today, which passed by a 20-16 party-line with Sens. Jim Runestad (R-White Lake) and Rick Outman (R-Six Lakes) being absent. 

Under the flagship bill in the package, SB 401, someone who calls out a local clerk for closing or relocating an election site that leaves minority communities without easy voting access goes first to their local clerk and chief administration officer to work out a deal. If that doesn't work, the voter can take the clerk to court.

A "Michigan Voting Rights Assistance Fund" would be set up within the State Treasury exclusively for the Michigan Department of State to reimburse pre-litigation analysis costs of up to $50,000 – but not for lawsuit expenses once a violation claim goes toward the courts. 

For Camilleri, he links his push for the bills to his time on the Republican-led House Oversight Committee during the 2019-20 legislative term. 

In December 2020, the committee heard a presentation from Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump's personal attorney at the time. He argued that allegations of election fraud in Detroit diluted Michigan's presidential election results. Less than four years later, a New York appeals court ruled that Giuliani lied when making such arguments, resulting in the loss of his New York State law license. 

"But the seed was planted that day to continue the attack on our democracy," Camilleri said. "We can no longer rely on the federal government to protect our rights at the national level. The Supreme Court just may not do that. That's why we need the Michigan Voting Rights Act." 

When describing his belief that the federal Voting Rights Act is vulnerable, Camilleri pointed to the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in summer 2022, undoing the federal position that abortion was permitted under the U.S. Constitution. The Legislature and the Governor have signed off on provisions with similar intentions dealing with healthcare, with Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signing bills in October 2023 to codify parts of the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA) into state statute. 

Other pieces of the MVRA bill package include: 

- SB 402, requires the Secretary of State to enter into a 25-year agreement, at least, with one or more of Michigan's public research universities – Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and Wayne State University – to generate "the Michigan Voting and Elections Database and Institute" by Nov. 5, 2025. 

- SB 403, mandates that by 2030, local governments provide election materials in a language shared by more than 5 percent of a community's voting population. Beginning in 2030, the election materials must be made available if the community with a shared language makes up 2.5 percent of the voting population. 

The Secretary of State would reimburse local governments for the extra costs. The Secretary of State will provide a biannual list of local governments needing to offer language assistance and for what languages.

- SB 404, assembles a system for two election inspectors from different political parties to assist disabled voters who are unable to go inside a polling location. 

Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly), the minority vice chair of the Senate Elections and Ethics Committee, opposed the bills because they placed "enormous new burdens" on election clerks and local government units "with the primary purpose, it would seem, to facilitate lawsuits against our local units of government and our hard-working clerks.

“They would also set a dangerous precedent and eviscerate long-standing norms about the sanctity of polling places,” she said.

Johnson, Michigan's Secretary of State from 2011-18, was concerned about how SB 404 permits non-voters to provide electors "food, warmth or other necessities" while they are waiting in line – inside or outside – to vote. 

She offered two failed amendments prohibiting candidates and family members, as well as anyone referencing a race or ballot question, from distributing the permitted items. 

"The voting process is a personal and private opportunity for citizens to express their preferences without undue influence or distraction once already inside the polling location. There is no good justification to say that, during the brief duration of their visit there, there's a need for food or beverages to be distributed that would outweigh the rights of the voters to their privacy," Johnson said. 

Moss said Johnson's explanations of her amendments created "so many fantasies." 

According to the Brennan Center for Justice, within New York University's School of Law, 7 percent of Black voters waited at least 30 minutes to cast their ballot in the 2018 midterm elections. Meanwhile, 6.6 percent of Latino voters waited for that period and 4.1 percent of White voters. The findings were based on a 60,000-person survey and nearly three dozen interviews with state and local election administrators.

When early in-person voting started in Georgia during October 2020, there were nationally talked about reports of voters in Atlanta – where around half of residents are Black – waiting more than 10 hours in line. 

"This argument that somehow food and water is a luxury item, while the same people want to create long lines to create a barrier for people to wait in those lines and exercise the right to vote, it makes your head spin," Moss said. "The law does not allow electioneering inside the polling location."