EDITOR:

Recently, Republican efforts to severely restrict voter access to the polls in Michigan hit a major snag — election fraud.

Tens of thousands of signatures collected on petitions supporting the “Secure MI Vote” referendum were collected by the same group as those found by the Michigan Bureau of Elections and Board of Canvassers on petitions submitted by five Republican candidates for governor to be fraudulent, causing organizers of “Secure MI Vote,” to miss petition submission deadlines. Consequently, the Secretary of State’s office has indicated that the “Secure MI Vote” initiative will not appear on the November ballot.

Backers of the cleverly named, yet misleading initiative claimed it would protect our elections from widespread voter fraud. What it actually would do is restrict access to the polls.

Since the 2020 Election, when Donald Trump lost Michigan by more than 150,000 votes, Republicans in the Legislature have passed dozens of bills attempting to restrict voter access to the polls. Their supposed objective was to protect our elections from “widespread voter fraud.” However, no evidence for such systemic fraud exists — in Michigan, or elsewhere.

Governor Whitmer promptly vetoed these anti-voter measures.

In 2018, millions of Michigan citizens voted to expand our access to the polls, making it easier and safer for everyone to exercise our constitutional right to vote.

Our elections are overseen by and carried out under the Office of our Secretary of State and by local election officials and experienced poll workers, including the clerks of all 83 Michigan counties, every single one of whom is sworn to uphold election laws.

As we have noted before it isn’t voters who cheat, it’s politicians. In this glaring case, politicians cheated, submitting thousands of petitions with falsified voter information — acts of fraud.

Our elections are safe and secure. There’s no need for partisan meddling.

If one has to resort to fraud to get one’s name or initiatives on the ballot, then they don’t belong there. Barring the so-called “Secure MI Vote” initiative from the ballots due to petition fraud is a major victory for all Michigan voters, because it upholds provisions of the referendum passed in 2018 by a wide margin that granted greater access to the polls through such measures as expanded access to and use of absentee ballots, simplified voter registration, and same-day voting by provisional ballot, etc.

Dan Young

Escanaba