DETROIT — The Michigan Legislature issued a subpoena for voting-related documents as the Michigan Republican Party continues to allege electoral malfeasance.
The majority-Republican House and Senate oversight committees came together on Saturday to request communications and documents tied to the mass mailing of applications for absentee ballots earlier this year and for mass mailings providing information about people’s right to vote, according to the Detroit News.
The news comes after an election fraught with allegations from Republicans that some of the Tuesday election’s absentee votes had the dates on them changed and that workers blocked several GOP poll challengers from being inside the building where the ballots were being tabulated — all charges that Democrats and the state government have strongly denied.
Michigan House Oversight Chairman Matt Hall said that the action his committee took on Saturday was done in order to show a commitment from lawmakers to get “election procedures right in the future.” The Republican said that he has received hundreds of calls and emails from his constituents who said they are losing faith in Michigan’s electoral process.
“It’s vitally important, as we go forward in Michigan, to ensure our election procedures are transparent, efficient, and trustworthy when people go to the polls,” he said in a statement. “This is a founding principle of our democracy. We must never stray from it, and we must work to protect it right now.”
Democrats in the legislature balked at the Saturday move, with some saying that it was done as a way for the Republicans to sow discord and doubt about the integrity of the ballot box. The House’s Democratic leader, Christine Greig, called the subpoena a “political stunt.”
“Today’s partisan spectacle is nothing by a desperate attempt by Republican legislators to cast a shadow of doubt over the legitimacy of our election,” she said.
Amid the election misconduct allegations, President Trump’s reelection campaign filed a lawsuit against the state, which was rejected. The state GOP has also referred a whistleblower complaint to the Justice Department from a Detroit city employee who claims that she was directed to illegally change the dates on ballots.
