LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – Speaker Pro Tem Rachelle Smit (R-Martin) says she’s had it with Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s stonewalling over basic election training materials. After nearly a year of requests, subpoenas, and now court-ordered mediation, Smit reported this week that talks went nowhere.
“I’m disappointed the court-ordered mediation did not yield a positive result,” Smit said, accusing Benson of keeping the legislature in the dark about what clerks are being taught. Smit, herself a former clerk, insists lawmakers have every right to review the very documents used to train the people running Michigan’s elections.
From 140 hours to four.
Benson’s Department of State at one point claimed it would take 140 man-hours and nearly $9,000 to cough up the records. Yet when pressed by the House Oversight Committee, the department suddenly managed to produce a hefty stack of documents in only about four hours. But not all.
The real prize still missing? The actual election training modules on the Bureau of Elections’ E- Learning Portal that was missing from the document dump. That omission led to a subpoena, which Benson’s office didn’t fully comply with – setting up the current legal standoff.
Illegal rules, legal battles.
Smit argues the legislature’s oversight role is especially critical given that several of Benson’s past rules and guidance have been tossed out by courts as illegal. Smit said in her press release that lawmakers need to know what clerks are being told so they can ensure elections are being run “effectively and in a non-partisan way.”
Instead, lawmakers have been treated to a high-stakes round of keep-away. The court ordered both sides to mediation, but Benson still refused to turn over the training materials – not really a good look on being transparent for a woman who wants to be Michigan’s next governor. Michigan News Source contacted Benson regarding the issue but received no response.
The bottom line.
What should have been routine oversight has now spiraled into a political soap opera. On one side, a legislature is demanding transparency; on the other, a Secretary of State who apparently thinks training materials are state secrets. And in the middle? Michigan voters, who just might like to know that their election referees aren’t getting instructions scribbled in invisible ink.
