Yes, County Clerks Do Make House Campus Calls
Michigan’s HAVA rules absolutely suck for college students. They require that first time voters vote in person. This leaves college students who live away from home two options: either re-register at their college address (and change their driver’s license, since both addresses must match) or drive across the state to vote at home. Each year, the Democrats in Washtenaw County try to re-register thousands of students at University of Michigan and Eastern Michigan University. Nevertheless, every year I’ve worked the polls I’ve seen a would-be first-time voter crushed when she discovered she couldn’t vote at her local precinct, and didn’t have the time (or the car) to drive home to cast a vote where she was registered.
This year, MI’s county clerks are trying to make it easier for students to apply for absentee ballots by allowing them to go to the Secretary of State office (basically the DMV office) near their college, show ID, and apply for an absentee ballot in person. In other words, a student at UM would go to our Secretary of State’s office, show ID, and get an absentee ballot sent from the clerk in Traverse City.
Only MI’s crappy AG and gubernatorial wannabe, Mike Cox, wants to prevent the clerks offices from doing this.
So, as a way to dramatize the plight of college students and to pressure Cox not to formally rule against this practice, Macomb County Clerk Carmella Sabaugh (who was the Democratic nominee to be Secretary of State in 2006) is driving to western Michigan today to drive three students registered in her county to the local Secretary of State Office so they can show ID and apply for an absentee ballot.
Macomb County Clerk / Register of Deeds Carmella Sabaugh (D-Warren) will drive 170 miles this afternoon to make sure Krysta Kornack of Warren and Jeanne and Katie Oxendine of Sterling Heights will not be prevented from voting. Kornack, a student at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, registered to vote on campus, and applied for an absent voter ballot. But her request was denied by her local clerk in accordance with Michigan law because she did not show a photo ID when she registered to vote. Kornack then went to the Ottawa County Clerk, the nearest county clerk office, showed photo ID, received an “In Person ID Verification” and applied again for an absent voter ballot.
But Kornack’s second request for an absent voter ballot was put at risk last week when the Michigan Senate Majority Leader asked the Attorney General to stop first-time voters, whose photo IDs were verified by county clerks, from getting absent voter ballots.
Jeanne and Katie Oxendine attend Hope College and want to cast an absent voter ballot because they will not be able to return home to vote. Jeanne registered to vote by mail, but showed her photo ID at the Ottawa County Clerk’s office. Katie registered to vote in person at a Secretary of State office.
The Attorney General issued an “informational letter” arguing the photo ID verifications performed by county clerks are invalid. The letter puts him at odds with the Michigan Secretary of State and 65 of the state’s 83 county clerks. The large group of bipartisan county clerks started a cross deputization program to verify photo IDs of first-time voters. The program applies equally across the state because any county clerk could participate at no cost.
“Secretary of State Terri Lynn Land deserves credit for standing up to the Attorney General, and Ottawa County Clerk Daniel Krueger deserves credit for leading the county clerk effort,” said Sabaugh. “The Attorney General should not be making it harder for decent citizens to vote.”
“Geography should not impair the right to vote,” said Daniel Krueger, Ottawa County Clerk (R-Holland Twp.) “My hope is that the Attorney General will understand the desire young people have to participate in the greatest process our country has and allow our cross deputization process to be an incentive to voters by allowing our photo ID verification process to continue.”
[snip]
Sabaugh agrees with Saginaw County Clerk Sue Kaltenbach who said, “Unless we’re told to actually cease and desist, we’ll continue.”
Sabaugh and Krueger will meet Kornack at the Grand Valley State University Kirkhof Center at 3:30 pm this afternoon. They will then meet the Oxendine’s at Hope College DeWitt Center a little after 4 pm, and drive the students to the nearest Secretary of State branch office in Holland where the students will show a photo ID to further satisfy the “in person” and photo ID requirements. (The nearest Secretary of State office to the Grand Valley Allendale campus is eight miles away.)
Sabaugh hopes her trip will focus public attention on this issue and help convince the Attorney General not to issue a formal opinion. “Until the Michigan Attorney General says he won’t invalidate the photo ID verifications of students, first-time student voters who want an absent voter ballot should show a photo ID at a Secretary of State office,” said Sabaugh.
This is a superb stunt for several reasons: Sabaugh has some prominence from her state-wide race in 2006. She serves a largely Republican County and–since Hope College is a pretty conservative Christian school–she’s probably helping at least two Republicans vote.
And most of all, with the length of her drive, she’s illustrating the lengths to which Cox is trying to force college students to go if they want to vote.
That’s quite the positive action. It needs wider publicity.
That’s cool! Well done, and I hope she invited all the local TV media to join her on the drive!
That it’s Republican voters is especially sweet!
Maybe KeithO can highlight her in his “Best Persons” segment?
There was an interesting editorial in the Detroit Free Press this morning about this. My youngest son was facing this same problem. I called the Peters campaign and told them my son could not vote for Peters because he’d be forced to vote for whoever is on the ballot in Kalamazoo. They contacted the clerk and they were told he could register in person at one particular Sec of State in Kalamazoo without using his Kalamazoo/college address. He did and he received his registration, which has his Royal Oak address, just like his original registration. Weirdest thing. Now we’ll see if they let him vote…
I imagine he’ll get to vote. Unless Cox issues a formal opinion, I guess. But if he feels like this will get really bad pub, he’ll back down. It’s only two years until the gubernatorial (and Land is one of the people talking about running against him for the GOP nomination).
Why do Republicans hate democracy?
Thanks EW. This is a great effort.
Can we send in some troops to cram democracy down the attorney general’s throat?
Republicans at every level are just making complete and total asses of themselves now. There are a whole lot of republicans who are going to wake up Nov. 5th, and wish they had behaved differently.
Kudos to:
Carmella Sabaugh
Sue Kaltenbach
Daniel Kruegar
and
Terri Lynn Land,
as well as Genuine American Patriot medals of honor.
To Mike Cox:
Withering disgust …
and a holey, base metal, BS pooper-scooper of dis-honor
as well as a lifetime membership in the most-despicable, un-patriotic
Al-Gonzo AG Club (of undistinguished, small minded twits who should be ashamed of themselves, had they the wit and conscience …).
Thank you for bringing these people (for good and ill) to our attention, Marcy. They all deserve to be recognized (and appreciated) for what they are.
Terry Lynn Land must be doing this for political reasons – she’s had her fingers in the voter suppression pie several times – So it makes sense if she’s planning to run against Cox.
“In Michigan, Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land, who is co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign there has been criticized by a federal judge for restricting access to “provisional ballots” by voters unsure of their precinct and failing to take action against voter intimidation efforts in heavily Democratic areas.” (2004) http://www.commondreams.org/he…..029-02.htm
“Michigan: Yesterday, a federal judge ordered Michigan Secretary of State Terry Lynn Land to restore over 1,500 Michigan voters to the rolls. The ruling was that the voters were illegally purged either as a result of their voter ID cards returned as undeliverable, or because they applied for a driver’s license in another state.” (2008)
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/10/14/132344/42
“Is the battleground state of Michigan turning into the next Florida? Is Terry Lynn Land – the Michigan Secretary of State and Republican co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign – about to become the next Katherine Harris?
In the last few weeks the Department of State’s branch offices in Ann Arbor and Battle Creek have distributed special notices to newly registered voters. “Registering today? Please be advised that you are not eligible to vote in the November 2, 2004 General Election.” Except the deadline to register for November’s election isn’t till October 4 and the fliers were meant for display only after October 5.
Ann Arbor’s a progressive haven. And Battle Creek remains a hotly contested swing district with a one-term House Republican struggling for re-election.
What’s going on here?
It’s impossible to know right now whether the State’s offices deliberately mislead voters or made an honest mistake. But when State Senator Mark Schauer of Battle Creek asked Land’s legislative liaison what they were doing to remedy the problem, he received a stunning reply.
Nothing.” (2004)
http://vote2004.eriposte.com/s…..chigan.htm
True enough. But she’s also gearing up to run against DeVos, remarkably enough.
So I think she’s leveraging to be the “sane” Republican in the primary race.
I have to agree with everybody here, this is quite remarkable and refreshing. Makes up for a lot of the bad to see this doesn’t it? Well done.
Does anyone in the U.S. ever argue for an arm’s-length federal elections commission that could simplify and rationalize the whole process? Honestly, if there are studies showing that voter fraud really isn’t a serious problem at all, nothing like the problem of voter suppression (and there are), then isn’t that a reform that a strengthened reforming Congress would want?
We have one of those, and it has always worked brilliantly. Like everything else that works well here, of course, Steve is now trying to fiddle with Elections Canada — in fact, he is suing them at the moment. He has managed to bring in absurd new ID rules under cover of voter-fraud scare tactics, and we’re still not up to fighting back very well.
It occurs to me that electronic voting and unique IDs together make for a database table of interest contra secret ballot.
the register of voters makes house calls in Cali
some employees at the ROV office specialize in candidates and ballot qualifications. Once the ballot is complete, these employees have some spare time to help out in other areas
Handicapped voters and shut-in seniors can call the ROV office, and request a hand delivered ballot. The Rov will dispatch a pair of deputy Registars of Voters to the voter’s residence with a ballot, allow the voter to mark the ballot, and then accept the ballot for counting and return it to the ROV office
personal service like this only takes place when other options are unavailable (ie, mail delivery problems, the precinct doesn’t have a physical polling place in the precinct, or there is not enough time left to use the mail, etc)
I’ve seen ROV employees put more than a thousand miles on a car in a single day, while delivering individual ballots to un-mobile people
In California (or in my county anyway), every employee of the Registar Of Voters makes every effort to ensure that EVERYBODY GETS TO VOTE
I can’t understand what is wrong with the people of the States outside California
LET AMERICANS VOTE
what are you, fookin communists ???
and in an off topic comment
I’m getting kinda worried about Obama’s chances
I think he’s makin a mistake, becoming the opening act for a baseball game
that’s a demotion
Obama is a headliner
Let’s hope Obama is the ZZ TOP of politicians
(for the uninitiated, before ZZ TOP became an “A List” band on MTV, they were known as “The Opening Act Every Other Band Feared To Follow” for 15 years)
et tu emptywheel ???
the BIG LIE is exposed:
I believed in you, an you betrayed me, man. I don’t believe in nuttin now. I’ goin to law school, man …
Hunter is actually a trapper, while trapper john is more of a hunter, where will the deciet end …
there are some really strange birds on our end of the toobz …
Sorry for the OT – Judge Leon has issued “his” definition of enemy combatants in Boumediene
http://www.scotusblog.com/wp/w…..-27-08.pdf
EW,
Looks like the GOP Civil War just started another battle (Battle Wack job). Beginning to wonder if we are being set up for the October surprise…
I think I’ll spotlight this to Keith Olbermann & Rachel Maddow.
Fabulous work, Marcy!!
Mary at 17, you probably got permission to go off-topic any time you wannt
an klynn at 18:
not much of October left
a November surprise, maybe ???
Nice work on the part of the county clerks, BUT I advocate for continued skepticism.
One of these county clerks and I had a dispute in the last month about the use of foreclosure lists to challenge voters; they didn’t believe they could be used. When pressed, it became apparent they didn’t have any clue how they’d detect the use of such documentation. Their efforts on behalf of students is a good first step, but it’s not going to be enough if as many as 48,000 home owners (or more) may be challenged at the polls because they’ve been foreclosed.
MI-SOS Land is also not known for acting in good faith; she regularly avoids answering questions about key issues, including what efforts she’s made to purge voters from the voter rolls in this state. She may play the saint act well with other Republicans, but she cannot be trusted based on her past and current behavior; she’s just another corporatist in sheep’s clothing, as she’s shown in decisions against voters and for corporations.
Macomb County clerk travels across state to help students vote absentee
why did this issue rear its ugly head ??
because of this asshole >>>> Senate Majority Leader Michael Bishop ( R – Rochester )
No more of this shit – there has to be a law with a fierce penalty against messing with people’s right to vote. In fact, i think everyone, even felons, should have the right to vote, end of story.