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A weekly show from the folks at East Lansing Info breaking down all the news and happenings in East Lansing, Michigan.
Hi, everyone. This is East Lansing info managing editor Luke Day, and this is the East Lansing Insider podcast. So earlier this week, there was some reporting on the Detroit News that we've since seen some state official respond to about election monitors coming from the federal government to East Lansing for the August fourth primary election. The reasons that they're sending them here are pretty unclear right now. We've got some reporting out about this out from earlier in the week where we referenced a statement from that the state made where they said that the DOJ is alleging things like long lines and issues with voter access that, require them to send these election monitors, but that wasn't really an issue in East Lansing during the twenty twenty four general election as they've said that it was.
Lucas Day:It's it's not the first time the federal government in East Lansing have interacted. For much of last year, we were talking about the city's sanctuary city status, which we know has created some challenges with the city receiving grants. They've been expected to sign on to things saying that they, will cooperate with federal authorities, and they've gotten warnings from the federal government about action if the city doesn't remove its sanctuary city status. So I've talked to council member Mark Meadows who thinks that this is just an extension of the Trump administration's retaliation against East Lansing for being a sanctuary city. But right now, no one really knows why East Lansing, Lansing, and Detroit were the three cities pick.
Lucas Day:So today on the East Lansing Insider podcast, we've got former city clerk Marie Wicks. Marie is now on Eli's board of directors, and she's gonna talk about her reaction to the letter from the federal government and some of the things that she hopes we see as we get close to the August fourth election. Thanks for joining us, Marie. So the city received this letter from the Department of Justice, the civil rights division in late June is what the release from the secretary of state and attorney general said. And it high that that statement highlights some concerns about voter intimidation, but it does highlight that election election monitors are welcome in the city.
Lucas Day:You can watch Michigan's elections. There there's rules around that. But what got the attention, it seemed, of the attorney general, the secretary of state, and then of several of the local officials I talked to is the reasoning that the Department of Justice, gave for sending election monitors in East Lansing. The three things that were highlighted in this in the statement were issues with voter access terminals, long lines, and then a lack of provisional ballots in East Lansing, Detroit, and Lansing. And I I just wanted to ask you about that, Marie, because, you know, I covered the twenty twenty four election.
Lucas Day:I know that the lines were a big win for you guys. And, yeah, I was hoping you could get into those three things, the voter access terminals, provisional ballots, and the lines, because those were the three things that were highlighted in that statement.
Marie Wicks:Sure. So, again, having been, the clerk at the time that oversaw and administered, that election along with a an amazing professional bipartisan and, most cases, nonpartisan team, I'm happy to address that. So let's talk I'll I'll pick the easy one off the top there. The the voter assist terminal is it's, it's a it's a ballot marking device. Anyone can use it, but it is geared towards helping folks that may have, you know, are visually impaired or hearing impaired and so on.
Marie Wicks:We did we absolutely did not have any issues with those machines, none, and so I really I'm not sure where, especially in East Lansing. I can't speak for the other jurisdictions, and that's that's the other thing. I'm only speaking for East Lansing. There were no issues, no reported issues with those. So to me, that is is fiction, I'll put it nicely.
Marie Wicks:As far as let's talk about provisional ballots. Again, I'm not sure. I I personally did not receive any complaints of a lack of offering provisional ballots. To be clear, our election inspectors are trained on provisional ballots. Let me go back to before 2018 dash '3, before we had same day voter registration.
Marie Wicks:Stu and I'm gonna reference students because this is really who were were impacted by, by that. Prior to 2018, anyone had to be registered to vote thirty days before the election. And as we know, and this is not a critique at all, sometimes students do wait till the last minute, and which is great. We want them to show up on election day before if they can now, but you'd have a student that would you know, couldn't get home to Marquette, and it's election day. And while a at that point, a provisional ballot probably wouldn't count, that isn't was an option.
Marie Wicks:It was and it's called a provisional envelope ballot. This is a federal right that they could invoke. So basically, the student would fill out the ballot, and then by law, they would have to appear at the clerk's office within six days with proof that they are a qualified elector of East Lansing. But what this really means is that you would have to show up with a voter ID card or a driver's license that has their East Lansing address. So by some, you know, administrative error, they were left off the the precinct list.
Marie Wicks:Of course, that never was the case. They're still you know, they would all they'd still be registered in Marquette, and then my obligation also under law was to write to that individual, explain that their ballot could not be counted and how they could remedy that in the future. So, you know, for because we now have same day voter registration, we don't I've not seen the need in the last, whatever, eight, six years that we've had eight years? Twenty eighteen? Yeah.
Marie Wicks:Eight years that we've had, same neighbor registration, there really is not a need for provisional ballot. So I'm not sure where that is coming from except for I I'm speculating that they don't understand how election laws work in Michigan. Each state, it should be made very clear, as we know, it's under the constitution, it's the state's purview to run elections and set laws and so forth. Each state does things differently, and we passed these pro democracy voter reforms in 2018 and 2022. So they may not be aware of that.
Marie Wicks:So we really have with same voter registration has precluded the need for provisional ballots. So if someone shows up to a polling location, they live in East Lansing, they can be directed to a satellite location or the clerk's office, and they need only show their their ID and their proof of residency. That is actually the critical component to that. So so with that being said, I'm not sure where the provisional ballot concern is coming from. I know that, you know, there are groups that get take calls from voters if there's an issue in a polling location, and they'll call a clerk and say, hey.
Marie Wicks:You know, this voter had this issue. I never got any calls from anyone saying I was denied or was not offered a provisional ballot. And so to me, I I really have no idea where that is coming from other than a lack of understanding of how Michigan election laws work. So I will pivot now to the lines. So this is a this is a a good one, actually.
Marie Wicks:In 2022, as many people know, Ann Arbor and East Lansing had very long lines. I actually, I wasn't the clerk at the time, but I was there working as an election inspector at Brody. At that point, anyone who registered to vote on election day, their only option was to vote an absentee ballot. This was rather a prolonged process. So, of course, we had a very long line.
Marie Wicks:People would have to register to vote, then be issued an absentee ballot, vote that ballot, sign it, put it in an envelope, and turn it back in. And then after the end of the night, of course, we had the last person in line. They well, voters have to be in line by 8PM, and by law, they were able to register to vote and obtain a ballot. That is still true. The last voter came through at about 12:15.
Marie Wicks:After we took all those ballots in, we had to take them back to City Hall where we pull up each voter's record for each ballot. This is how tight and well tracked our absentee ballot system is. We pull up the voter. We match the signature. We do signature verification 100%, check that ballot in.
Marie Wicks:And then once all those ballots were checked in, we printed what's called a supplemental, list, printed that off, sealed up those ballots, and then took them over to the Hanna Community Center to be processed. So, you know, when people talk about, you know, late night ballot drops and things like that, this is what happens. People turn their ballots in, you know, at 8PM or, you know, later. And so that made for a very long night and very long lines. So fast forward to 2324.
Marie Wicks:Everything that we did, especially for 2024, was to mitigate those issues that we had in 2022. And I wanna give a real big shout out to my predecessor and my successor, or I should reverse that. Successor and predecessor, Jennifer Shuster, who did an amazing job and who who left to go to the senate, which is why I came on board in 2023. She created a document that laid out everything that she had done and, you know, everything that we could work with to make things better. So I sort of picked up where she left off.
Marie Wicks:So what we did in 2024, we were one of three jurisdictions that implemented or piloted what's called an election day vote center. So Ann Arbor, East Lansing, and Grand Rapids did these centers. For these centers, the students were able to and it was a 100% students, I will say, were able to register to vote in one part of the line. And because the qualified voter file on election day is operating in real time, they could go to the next part of the line to where the inspectors are issuing ballots and be issued a ballot, a regular ballot, not an absentee ballot, and then they could proceed to mark their ballot and then go to the very end where they tabulate the ballot. So this resulted in yes.
Marie Wicks:We had we had lines. I'm not gonna you know, they were certainly not the lines that we saw in 2022. I didn't see anybody unhappy. We know that even on campus, the the lines were gone by probably no later than 08:30 or 09:00 at night, which is a big, as you said, a a big win. Students enjoyed it.
Marie Wicks:We felt great about it. We had 1,700 students come through. We had one we had 700 students or so go through the city hall election day vote center and over a thousand on campus, and we exceeded the Election Day vote centers of Ann Arbor and Grand Rapids. So I think that's pretty cool. And and yeah.
Marie Wicks:So back to this letter. For there's some kind of, you know, implication that we have maybe not violated but offended the HAVA law is just absurd in my mind. You know, we did everything we could. It was smooth as can be. We did groundbreaking work.
Marie Wicks:We had a great partnership with Michigan State University. And so, so that's my response to those three, issues or so that were pointed out.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And I I mean, when I I read through the release, the long lines got my attention because I I'm not an elections expert. Like, I'm not gonna know what a voter access terminal is or know enough about it. Provisional ballot stuff. But I I can remember talking to you about the lines leading up to the election, and the lines were, like, the election story.
Lucas Day:And you're saying even more so than even more so than the results in the city, can remember from 2024. Because it was kind of seen by skeptics like me as this, you know, unsolvable structural problem with same day voting where, you know, students are gonna wait till the last day to register to vote because they move address so much or they're voting for the first time. They all need to register, and they put it off to the last day. And you you told me, you're like, we're gonna we're we're gonna push registering early. We've got this new election day vote center coming in.
Lucas Day:Like, we think we can fix the problem. And I was like, yeah. Right. Like, leading up to the election, if I covered 2022 as well. But I remember they really pushed early registration before that election, and you still had people in line after midnight.
Lucas Day:And then I got to the priest the election day vote center at, 06:30 or seven on election day, and I was looking around like, where is everybody? Because the lines were they just weren't there. Yeah. That was that was seen as a, you know, a triumph for access in the city. It went but I can I talked to Renee Brown with MSU Vote, and she's like, it went better than we thought that it would?
Lucas Day:Like, we didn't know that it could go this well. And and so the Lions got my attention. And so we don't know why the DOJ and I wanna backtrack a little bit. You talked about PABA a little bit. So we've heard a lot of talk from the federal government about election fraud.
Lucas Day:My my reading of the statement and, again, I don't have the letter, but my readment reading of the statement from the Michigan officials and the fact that the Department of Justice civil rights division is involved in this isn't that they're alleging election fraud. It looks like they're alleging issues with access to voting, which is which is different. As we just said, cutting down the lines is a tremendous win for access to voting. It's easier to vote.
Marie Wicks:Yeah. I concur with that. Yeah. I I actually found it a very odd angle. So in my understanding, just through reading, I personally have never experienced federal election monitors.
Marie Wicks:Maybe they were there, and I I I would assume I would have been made aware because we're always made aware of, you know, challengers in advance. Yeah. I found that odd. So in the past, the civil rights division of the Department of Justice would make sure that would send out monitors to make sure sure no one's rights are being, you know, encroached or that make sure that people are not being disenfranchised. I find this interesting because I almost feel like it's a pretext for being here.
Lucas Day:Mhmm.
Marie Wicks:Because I think there's a big nothing to see here really and truly. And because, again, the I don't think that election could have gone any smoother. And I I give a shout out to everyone involved, WKAR, Michigan State University, and, of course, the clerk's office did and all the election inspectors. One other thing too that we did, I think, to mitigate election day was to extend our early voting on campus. We the law requires a minimum of nine days.
Marie Wicks:We did fourteen days on campus. The other thing that we did that other and I would recommend every early voting site to have is we had people on-site to register voters. That is not a typical component of early voting, but a satellite office is a must in a college town. And, I mean, we just we had it we had we literally Amy, Gordon, and I made a blueprint for this. And, you know, when you're a clerk, you do a lot of stuff.
Marie Wicks:Your communications, you're carrying stuff around. It's very physical, but you're also a logistics person. And we had a a blueprint. We made a diagram of where everything would go. We tweaked it.
Marie Wicks:You know, we made sure that we had lines for people or somebody to say, if you're registered, go to this line. If you're not, go to this line. And so we were so well organized. We had, you know, over 75 people working. So I I I just find these these allegations a little suspect.
Marie Wicks:But having said that, elections are transparent. That's one thing I always teach election inspectors, particularly when we get to the section about campaigners, exit pollsters, poll watchers, and challengers. And there's a there's a lot of confusion between poll watchers and challengers. We hear the term poll challenger, and that's kind of conflated. A poll watcher is a person that can stay in a in a public area.
Marie Wicks:They do not have to be credentialed or affiliated with any group. They can't talk to anyone. They're just there to observe. A challenger has different rights, and those are things that we're gonna hear more about going into the election because those rights and restrictions and duties were recently codified in administrative rules. But, you know, challengers are able to walk behind the tables where the election inspectors are working.
Marie Wicks:They may challenge a voter's qualifications to vote based on four criteria, residency, citizenship, age, and are they actually registered. Any challenge would only be issued to the precinct chair. They cannot ever speak directly to the voter. They can only speak to one work or two. They cannot, you know, question people.
Marie Wicks:So so anyhow, those rules are very specific. They are prescribed in administrative rules. I will be curious to see what the federal election monitor restrictions are. So I think they may have the ability to do all of those things except for maybe talk to the workers and so on. So so that will be interesting.
Marie Wicks:But transparency is welcome. That's the important thing about elections is that they are transparent. There are roles for everybody, in the polling location.
Lucas Day:Right. Right. And I have sent the DOJ a list of questions, including, you know, why why are you coming here? Thank you for that. Yeah.
Lucas Day:I haven't heard back yet. I don't know if I will. But, yeah, you just made a point that I think is kind of important to highlight because when I talked to council member Mark Meadows about this, he was concerned about people being dissuaded from voting in this cycle, because they read about, you know, federal some sort of federal entity coming to East Lansing Elections. And he said, you know, if they're if they're following the law, you're probably not gonna notice that they're there on election day. Like, he said we're gonna have to wait until election day to see what they're actually doing because there's a lot of mystery around, you know, federal people coming in because it hasn't happened before.
Lucas Day:But he said if they're doing what, you know, the challengers and the poll watchers doing, they're probably gonna be staying in the back of the room. They can't interact with voters. They can't touch our voting equipment. Like, you're probably not gonna notice that they're there, but he's worried about the story, dissuading people from voting. And I I I thought that was kind of an interesting point.
Marie Wicks:I think that's a great point. And I I like that opinion. Of course, Mark is an attorney and a former assistant attorney general, so I think he's spot on, actually. You know, I don't I think we wanna, you know, take take this seriously, but also not amplify it to the extent that people are dissuaded. I mean, there's enough misinformation out there already to discourage voters.
Marie Wicks:I know, I was at a gathering last night, and I was introduced as a retired clerk, and I was pelted with questions about absentee voting. I saw something on, I think it was Neighborhood Next Door earlier today, that I'm gonna have to probably correct, but it it made me very nervous. But somebody was talking about ICE coming to the polls in East Lansing, and that is absolutely incorrect. I agree with Mark that you probably won't even know that they're there. Our election inspectors and precinct chairs will be trained on, you know, what the expectations are.
Marie Wicks:So I I really I do not want anyone to be discouraged at all from voting however you want to vote. And that's a great thing about the recent pro democracy voter reforms that we've had. You can choose how you wanna vote. You know, you can vote from home and and turn in your absentee ballot. You can mail it in.
Marie Wicks:You can drop it off. You can vote on election day. You can vote early. You can take your absentee ballot to early voting and put your absentee ballot through the tabulator. You can do the same thing on election day.
Marie Wicks:So I I don't think anyone should be concerned. I I will say this. The the two city clerks, the the deputy and the city clerk who happen to be sisters, are amazing. They are strong. They are knowledgeable.
Marie Wicks:I consider them my proteges. I'm very proud of them. They do everything by the book. And, again, just remember that the East Lansing city clerk is a nonpartisan appointed position. This is not a politician.
Marie Wicks:And so I have every faith that things are gonna be run by the book. We also have a great county clerk who's also very you know, who has commented on this situation as and is invested particularly in students having access to the ballot in the fall. But, no, I think we have real good infrastructure here in terms of personnel and and otherwise to make sure that our elections are safe, secure, and, free.
Lucas Day:Yeah. Absolutely. And so the the we're we're anticipating that there's gonna be some sort of federal presence for the August election, which, you know, you and I have talked about is interesting because nobody votes on election day.
Marie Wicks:Yeah. The students are gonna be here. And the ones who are, we're moving into Bailey and and so on. They're they're probably not thinking about necessarily voting in the primary here. So yeah.
Marie Wicks:So I I think that I I do believe this is laying the groundwork for a November presence.
Lucas Day:Mhmm.
Marie Wicks:I don't wanna make it sound like that's menacing in any way. I because, again, I wanna go back to what Mark said and that if they are complying with federal law and state statutes, probably won't even know they're there that they're there.
Lucas Day:Yeah. And just looking ahead to November, because you and I talked about this, this isn't some of our reporting from this week. You talked about how if there is some sort of voter intimidation, which I know is a concern from the state, and if there's a November presence, maybe students still vote, but they don't vote in East Lansing. They vote via absentee ballot in their hometown.
Marie Wicks:Mhmm.
Lucas Day:And that was a primary concern for you just because of the competitive nature of our house district. I was wondering if you could, you know, talk about how the voting method could have an actual impact on elections, I guess, is the way to put it. And then, you know, other concerns you might have if we do see a presence in November.
Marie Wicks:Yeah. I wanna be really thoughtful about how I answer that question. I think, you know, you can speculate. I do think that there is a focus on our district because it is a highly contested, one of the most highly contested congressional districts. So that is a thing.
Marie Wicks:But what I really think it comes down to at the end of the day, and it's so it's just this plain and simple thing, is that students wait till the last minute. They do. And what that turns into is same day voter registration or, you know, the last few days voting, early voting. I I think it's gonna come down to as well who who wins the primary on the Democratic side. And I say this because Tom Barrett doesn't have a primary opponent.
Marie Wicks:You know, who's gonna excite the students to get out and vote? What issues are on the ballot? I mean, we know that the reproductive rights issue definitely had impacted voter turnout in 2022. That was a big deal. And I I wanna be clear too for anybody listening that the law still says that a a voter must reside for thirty days in order to be able to register to vote or eligible to vote in that district.
Marie Wicks:That still applies. And understanding that students, you know, who are moving in in late August certainly meet that requirement when they're going to vote in November because I you know, I've heard people say, oh, students shouldn't vote here. They need to go home and vote. And and that's their choice. That absolutely is their choice, but they are eligible to vote here.
Marie Wicks:I do think, generally, there's a belief that if students vote in a block in East Lansing and on campus, that it definitely tends to lean left. Mhmm. So but I I wouldn't say that's universally as true as people might believe. We definitely saw some a little bit more of a bipartisan vote in 2024, but generally speaking, I I think that's the thought is that when students vote here, it it it leans things to the left.