I’ve introduced legislation to address this particular issue several terms in a row, and this term, in our conversations with the Secretary of State’s office, clerks and various organizations, realized that there were many other areas of the recount law that needed to be modernized. I want to thank the Secretary of State, her staff, the county clerks, Promote the Vote, and many other stakeholders we worked with over several months—and also the chair of our committee for his partnership.
I want to clarify two things. One, if someone wants to petition for a recount because they believe there was a fraud or error or anything that calls them to ask for a recount, they still do under the passage of this bill. And two, I want to be clear that our bipartisan county boards of canvassers are not responsible, have never been responsible, and will continue to not be responsible for investigations of election fraud. We have law enforcement who are well-equipped, trained, and responsible for these investigations.
I want to talk about three main themes of these bills. First, the issue of frivolous recounts. We remember past election cycles when a campaign requested a recount that was very costly and had zero chance of changing the outcome in that race. These types of frivolous recounts will be avoided in our legislation by ensuring that the candidate filing for a recount must do so in good faith and that the number of votes requested to be recounted must be, at minimum, greater than the difference in votes between the petitioning candidate and the winning candidate.
The second theme I’ll highlight is that we clearly define what a recount is. We define a recount as an administrative process to determine votes cast for a candidate or ballot question, and we make clear that a recount is not an audit and not an investigation. These words are not interchangeable, and this clarification is important to minimize confusion.
Lastly, the bill also addresses the issue that initially piqued my interest in the recount law, the recountability. We’ve heard from clerks that in some cases the zip-ties or other sealing devices on a container might become more fragile in extreme temperatures or that they are just not strong enough. Sometimes they might snap, even if it’s just because a clerk is loading or unloading and there are witnesses that indicate that no tampering occurred. Right now, under law, those counts can’t be recounted.
We’ve also heard numerous times where the number of ballots on the pollbook didn’t exactly match the number on the tabulator tape and it’s because the voter went to the wrong polling location and before they left, their name didn’t get crossed off; or maybe that person came in to vote and walked out with a ballot still in hand. We are currently fixing that so that the number of ballots, if it’s off by a small amount and there is a satisfactory explanation, the board of canvassers can choose to still recount that precinct.
I believe that these bills achieve critical goals of protecting the security of every vote and ensuring that our recounts achieve our intended goals. I encourage my colleagues to support Senate Bill Nos. 603 and 604.
The following bill was read a third time:
Senate Bill No. 604, entitled
A bill to amend 1927 PA 175, entitled “The code of criminal procedure,” by amending section 11d of chapter XVII (MCL 777.11d), as amended by 2023 PA 266.
The question being on the passage of the bill,
The bill was passed, a majority of the members serving voting therefor, as follows: