Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson will tell a congressional panel that “lies,” threats to election workers and foreign interference are big concerns heading into the final weeks of this year’s political campaigns.

According to a copy of her testimony shared with the Michigan Public Radio Network, Benson will say that, although she is an elected Democrat, the role of the secretary of state or other election officials is not partisan or political.

“But it is a role that increasingly forces us — whether we consider ourselves Republicans, Democrats, or independents — to endure threats, harassment, false and malicious attacks on our character and integrity,” she said. “Why? Because of lies — about our work, about the security of our elections and our own integrity.”

Benson will appear alongside a bipartisan group of six secretaries of state, many from states considered competitive in the presidential race. Benson’s statement includes warnings about foreign interference in U.S. elections, and threats and harassment faced by election workers. Her statement also includes concerns about underfunding of elections and the need to maintain and update voting technology.

It is likely Benson can expect to face some tough questions from the Republican-controlled House Committee on Administration.

Read more:

• Benson, election officials hail recent reforms at press conference
• County clerks on security, early voting in the 2024 general election
• What Jocelyn Benson has been doing to protect Michigan’s elections

Local clerks play a critical roll in ensuring free and fair elections.

City and township clerks hold three major responsibilities – keeping track of records like birth, death and marriage certificates, and overseeing financial operations and local elections.

According to Canton Township Clerk Michael Siegrist, of the 1,240 Michigan township clerks up for election in November — accounting for roughly 82% of the state’s 1,516 local election officials — 118 have no clerk candidates on the ballot.

“We’ve never seen anything like this in history, 9.5% of all clerk races this year will have NOBODY elected.” he wrote on X earlier this month. “Why doesn’t anyone want to do this job? How does a state deal with such a massive labor shortage? Who will run elections in these communities?”

Today on Created Equal host Stephen Henderson was joined by Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, Ottawa County Clerk Justin Roebuck and Michigan Advance reporter Jon King to discuss how to protect election integrity in cities or townships without clerk candidates.

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Guests 

Jocelyn Benson is the secretary of state for Michigan. She says the state is prepared with a back-up plan when there aren’t clerks to fill positions.

“When there is a vacancy at any point — or if a clerk fails to do their duty, their legal duty, under the law — we at the state level have supervisory authority where we can appoint someone or come in,” she said. “Oftentimes that’ll involve working with folks in the community to identify someone [like] local officials, mayors, township supervisors, and county clerks. [They] also have different elements of supervisory power over local jurisdictions to make sure the job gets done. So even if there’s a vacancy, we still have ways of making sure the work happens, [so] that democracy continues to go smoothly.”

Jon King is a reporter for Michigan Advance and the author of a recent article about the state’s local clerk candidate shortage. He says the additional duties given to clerks means there’s a larger personal cost. 

“The people that are administering these elections are, I think, getting somewhat swamped. I mean, we talked about early voting starting this weekend…I saw several online posts from clerks who were at their early voting areas, and they have their kids in the other room, coloring,” he said. “And, [on] one hand, you go, ‘Oh, that’s cute.’ On the other hand, you realize that there is a cost, a personal cost to be paid.”

Justin Roebuck is the clerk for Ottawa County, Michigan. He says clerks work with a system of municipal checks and balances, meaning that those who run elections know their community very deeply. 

“I’ve been a county clerk for a decade, and the people that I work with as my township’s clerk, are experts in their field, but they’re also experts in their communities,” he said. “You know, they know their communities.”

Listen to Created Equal with host Stephen Henderson weekdays from 9-10 a.m. ET on 101.9 WDET and streaming on-demand.

Early in-person voting opened across Michigan this past weekend ahead of next week’s primary elections.

According to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, around 6,400 people voted Saturday and around 4,200 people came to the polls on Sunday.

At a press briefing Monday, Benson said over 1.6 million people in the state have requested an absentee ballot. Meanwhile, around 700,000 ballots have been returned.

David Becker with the Center for Election Innovation and Research said spreading voting out across a span of days, rather than allowing it only on Election Day, is better for ballot access and election security.

“Concentrating all voting into a single 12- or 14-hour period on a single Tuesday creates a single point of potential failure for a lot of things to happen. Could be traffic. It could be weather. It could be a power outage. It could be some kind some kind of intentional attack on the system, a cyber event or something else,” Becker said.

Election officials said the only notable issue so far during early voting came Saturday morning when a State of Michigan server became overloaded.

Benson said backup plans allowed voting to continue uninterrupted and that she’s confident it won’t happen again.

The early voting period is part of a series of recent election changes that also allow local clerks to start some pre-processing, but not counting, of absentee ballots ahead of Election Day.

Sterling Heights City Clerk Melanie Ryska said that goes a long way toward getting election results available faster.

“With pre-processing or early tabulation, we hope to work and alleviate some of that work and that strain we have on Election Day. That will give us an opportunity to focus on the ballots that are being returned the day before or on Election Day, to process those on Election Day,” Ryska said.

For comparison, Ryska said it took her team over 27 hours during the 2020 presidential election cycle to finish going through all of the absentee ballots it received.

Election officials are hoping to avoid a repeat this year of tensions from the fallout of the 2020 election, when Michigan became a focal point of efforts to overturn the results of the presidential race.

Michigan saw several policy changes following that experience. This is the first major cycle when they’ll be tested.

Aside from creating an eight day in-person early-voting period and allowing for some pre-processing of ballots, new Michigan election laws further criminalized the intimidation of election workers.

“We’ve also been running scenario planning exercises with law enforcement, first responders, and our clerks all across the state to make sure that we’ve got a rapid response plan in place if anything does erupt or occur on Election Day so that we can be ready,” Benson said.