Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has issued guidance for election workers and law enforcement on everything from new voting laws to dealing with disturbances at polling places.

The 14-page document outlines laws about ballot drop box security, carrying firearms at and near polling places, electioneering near voting locations, the roles of election challengers and dealing with disruptive behavior.

“This guidance is critical to keep us all on the same page, preserve the rights of Michiganders in every community, and to maintain a safe environment at every voting location across the state,” Nessel said Thursday in a Zoom press conference.

One of the points addresses the use of police body cameras at polling places. The advice says officers need to ensure if they are called to a polling place, body cameras cannot violate the right of voters to privately fill out their ballots.

Nessel said law enforcement has a lot of discretion to address threats and disruptions but also a legal obligation to help ensure an orderly election.

“And it’s up to law enforcement from my office to our State Police to sheriff’s departments and local agencies in every community to preserve public safety and help ensure a secure legal voting environment,” she said.

DETROIT (AP) — Thousands of documents turned over by Michigan State University reveal nothing new about what the school might have known about years of sexual abuse committed by Larry Nassar, the campus doctor who assaulted female athletes, the state attorney general said Wednesday.

“It was surprising to me that we did not find anything that was incriminating,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said at a news conference.

“It seems sort of improbable to us, right?” she said. “This is a major university, obviously extensive number of employees that work there. I guess the expectation is that we would find a little bit more than we did.”

Nassar, who also worked for USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians, is serving decades in prison for sexual assault committed under the guise of treatment as well as other crimes. Michigan State in 2018 agreed to a $500 million settlement with hundreds of people, mostly women, who said he abused them with his hands.

For years, Nessel and her predecessor clashed with Michigan State’s lawyers and its elected governing board over the release of records. While more than 100,000 documents were initially turned over to investigators, another batch of 6,000 was withheld under attorney-client privilege until this year.

Since the Nassar scandal broke in 2016, Michigan State has repeatedly said that no one at the school covered up his actions. Former gymnastics coach Kathie Klages was found guilty of lying to investigators about allegations told to her back in the 1990s, but the state appeals court threw out the conviction.

Former Michigan State President Lou Anna Simon, too, was charged with misleading investigators during a 2018 interview, but that case was dismissed before a trial.

After seeing the records, Nessel believes the university was wrong to claim attorney-client privilege over all of the documents, though a judge in 2019 had agreed with the school’s position.

The attorney general accused Michigan State of giving victims a “sense of false hope” that the records would be revealing after finally giving them up. Nessel plans to make them publicly available.

“Simply put, there remains no fulfilling answer to the question of how this abuse was able to be perpetuated on so many, for so long, without MSU, or anyone else, putting a stop to it,” Nessel said.

Michigan State spokesperson Emily Gerkin Guerrant said the university has taken significant steps to improve campus safety and culture since 2016.

Ripples from the Nassar saga have spread widely. In April, the U.S. Justice Department announced a $138 million settlement with more than 100 people who accused the FBI of mishandling allegations against the doctor in 2015 and 2016, a critical time gap that allowed Nassar to continue to prey on victims before his arrest.

USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee made a $380 million settlement for its alleged negligence.

A Justice Department internal watchdog recently said the FBI has failed to report some child sexual abuse allegations to local police or social service agencies even after its poor handling of claims about Nassar led to changes.

Story by Ed White, Associated Press