Today in Lansing, around 10:30am, Representative Steve Carra (R) finished drafting a bill that would require a statewide audit of the 2020 general election in the state of Michigan.
The bill, House Bill 5091 would require a bipartisan election audit board that will consist of 7 members:
- One member appointed by the majority leader of the senate
- One member appointed by the minority leader of the senate
- One member appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives
- One member appointed by the minority leader of the house of representatives
- The auditor general, or or his or her authorized designee
- One member who was a poll challenger at the 2020 general November election and who is randomly selected and appointed by the major political party whose candidate for secretary of state received the highest number of votes at the immediately preceding general November election
- One member who was a poll challenger at the 2020 general November election and who is randomly selected and appointed by the major political party whose candidate for secretary of state received the second highest number of votes at the preceding general November election
In the bill, a third party corporation will commence the audit of the qualified voter file and provide a log of all additions, revisions and deletions to the qualified voter file. The log will include names and location of individuals that make any revisions to the file, and a detailed description of the records in the voter file.
This third party corporation will select at least 10% from all 83 counties and at least 20% of the election precincts in each county with a population of more than 500,000 (Detroit), from the 2020 general November election in the state to audit poll books, ballots, and vote tallies from those randomly selected election precincts.
The bill will also require logs of each poll book, a determination whether or not any electronic poll book was hooked up to the internet, and whether or not changes or regular updates were made.
The ballot audit would look at the total number printed, the number of mailed absentee ballots, the time clerks received absentee ballots on Election Day and other steps in the process.
The vote tally audit would review the electronic voting systems used to tabulate ballots in each precinct.
Rep. Carra is hopeful this bill will go before the House Elections and Ethics Committee. This is one groundbreaking step in straightening out the election process here in Michigan.
Written by: Rachel Marcero 6/22/21