SE Oakland News

Sen. Ruth Johnson (R-Holly) has sponsored two bills in the Michigan Senate that she says would help to prevent delays in the vote count for the upcoming November election.

Johnson, also a former Michigan secretary of state who has overseen the election process at the state level, recently appeared on WJR’s "The Frank Beckmann Show" to discuss her legislation and views on how Michigan’s current Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has endangered the election process.

Johnson’s first bill would permit vote counters to work in shifts after the election, she explained

Sen. Ruth Johnson | #MiSenateGOP

The second would permit local election officials to begin the counting of absentee ballots prior to election day, a move intended to prevent the final vote tally from being delayed significantly by the labor-intensive process of counting mail-in ballots, Johnson said.

"With COVID, I know many people will vote absentee or by mail, because of their concerns,” Johnson told Beckmann. 

Although she is concerned that votes are counted in a timely manner, Johnson told Beckmann that her greater concern is making certain the vote count is accurate.

Johnson said that Benson has shown herself to be very partisan in her role as secretary of state, making unilateral decisions -- such as mailing out absentee ballot request forms to ineligible voters -- that have challenged the integrity of Michigan’s election process.

"The loopholes are the size of Texas right now, and she’s invited people to vote that are not qualified,” Johnson told Beckmann.

So far, 500,000 ballot requests have been sent back because the people they were addressed to had moved or were deceased, but another approximately 300,000 similar ballot requests are unaccounted for, Johnson told Beckmann.

Benson’s office even sent out ballot request forms to people who Michigan already knew were eligible to vote because they had surrendered their Michigan driver’s license in another state, Johnson said.

"The devil is in the details in mail-in, and she has stripped out almost every system that makes sure that we have qualified voters voting,” Johnson told Beckmann. “And that’s what I’m concerned about. I don't mind waiting a little bit longer, as long as I know it’s accurate.” 

In cases where someone is simply ineligible and doesn’t realize it, it’s possible they may cast a ballot without believing they are doing anything wrong, Johnson said.