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Elections office answers senator’s questions about noncitizen voting safeguards • Michigan Advance

Posted on by Nargang
Elections office answers senator’s questions about noncitizen voting safeguards • Michigan Advance

Around the election day of November 5, following a report by a University of Michigan student in China voting at a polling place in Ann Arbor, Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly) sent a letter to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson asking about the state’s safeguards to keep ineligibles from voting.

Johnson, who preceded Benson as secretary of state from 2011 to 2018, raised concerns about a mismatch between information on new voter registrations and information stored in federal Social Security records facilitated by the Security Administration’s Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system, asking how many of these individuals voted and questioning the integrity of the state. same-day voter registration system and provisions allowing individuals to register to vote by signing an affidavit instead of presenting a photo ID.

While Johnson pointed to 34,535 people whose names, birth dates and Social Security numbers did not match any records in the Social Security database, Jonathan Brater, director of the Michigan Office of Elections, wrote in his response Thursday that Johnson’s letter contained misconceptions about the function of the HAVV system.

Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly) speaks at an election security event in Lansing, Michigan on June 5, 2024 (Photo: Anna Liz Nichols)

“HAVV allows states to attempt to verify the last four digits of an applicant’s submitted Social Security number. HAVV cannot be used, it is it is not and has never been used to verify an applicant’s citizenship status,” Brater wrote. “HAVV cannot be used for this purpose because it matches the Social Security Administration’s database of social security numbers, and some non-citizens have social security numbers.”

While Johnson wrote in her letter that she was “alarmed to learn recently of a dramatic increase” in transactions submitted to the system that “came back as inappropriate for a known U.S. citizen,” Brater responded that the system does not provide information on whether a person is a known citizen and that this information does not appear on the website of the HAVV system.

Brated noted that querying the system returns the following results: no match, single live match, multiple live matches, single dead match, multiple dead matches, multiple live/deceased matches, or invalid input .

He also noted that the system matches information to a “person” rather than a “citizen.”

While Johnson asked how many of the 34,535 mismatched transactions reported by the system represented new voter registrations, Brater said the number of HAVV transactions did not match the number of voter registrations, making it impossible to determine that number .

He went on to explain that the state uses the HAVV system to verify the last four digits of the Social Security numbers of voters with disabilities who request an accessible absentee ballot.

“Because these individuals are less likely to have a Michigan driver’s license, this app allows voters to request an accessible absentee ballot by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number. Michigan uses HAVV to verify the social security number provided and to verify that the applicant matches a registered Michigan voter,” Brater said.

If the system shows a match, that person can apply for an accessible absentee ballot, Brater said. Otherwise, the application is rejected and the clerk will not issue a ballot.

“In particular, a person could submit an unlimited number of unsuccessful applications using the Omniballot application with data that does not match. None of these applications would result in the issuance of a ballot for the absentee voter, but each would generate a mismatch in the HAVV. Alternatively, an eligible individual may also require multiple attempts to successfully apply, resulting in mismatches followed by a match,” Brater said.

Michigan Elections Director Jonathan Brater at the Michigan State Board of canvassers meeting. May 31, 2024. Screenshot.

Accordingly, there is no reason to believe that the 34,545 mismatches submitted to the system means that 34,545 people registered to vote without providing a Social Security number, Brater said.

While the vast majority of voters register online or automatically with their driver’s license number, those without a license can register by mail or in person by providing the last four digits of their Social Security number, Brater said. If they don’t, they must show a federally required ID before they can vote.

If a voter registers in person, the federal ID requirement does not apply, but the voter must provide voter identification or sign an affidavit under Michigan election law, Brater said, noting that people who register register within 14 days of the election must provide proof of residence in order to vote.

“Therefore, regardless of how a voter registers, they must provide identity verification. In almost all cases, this is in the form of a Michigan driver’s license. In other cases, it is through the last four digits of a Social Security number or other forms of identification as required by state and federal law,” Brater said.

“Regardless, legal requirements and election procedures ensure that voters identify themselves when they register and vote. While your letter reflects concerns about verifying applicant eligibility, HAVV’s purpose is to verify voter identity,” Brater said.

However, Johnson was not satisfied with Brater’s response.

“The response I received did not answer any of the questions I asked. The number of non-matches has increased significantly. We understand that the 35,000 mismatches were not all voter registrations — that’s why we asked how many were voter registrations and how many of those people voted,” Johnson said in a response provided by her office.

“We know this happens, it happened recently at UM. But he was only caught because this individual returned to the clerk’s office to ask for his ballot back. Anytime someone who is ineligible is allowed to vote, that affects an eligible voter, so I think it’s very important to get that information from the secretary of state,” Johnson said.

Election officials have continually emphasized that the vote of non-citizens is extremely rare, with a 2017 review from the Brennan Center for Justice of 42 jurisdictions in the 2016 general election, finding that “election officials in those places, who oversaw the tallying of 23.5 million votes, referred only about 30 incidents of suspicious non-citizen voting for further investigation or follow-up criminal. In other words, even the suspected – unproven – non-citizen votes accounted for only 0.0001% of the votes cast.”

libertarian The Cato Institute wrote similarly that noncitizens are not voting illegally in detectable numbers when examining claims of noncitizen voting in the 2020 election.