Four Macomb County residents are facing felony charges after being accused of knowingly voting twice during the August primary election.
Authorities accuse the defendants of turning in an absentee ballot, but then still showing up to vote on election day. That’s despite election day being too late for them to spoil the absentee ballot under state law.
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said this was beyond a simple misunderstanding.
“They had to fill out their envelopes. Right? They had to fill out the ballots, they had to put everything into the sleeve and then close the envelope and then sign it, it’s their signature on the back, and then send it into the clerk’s office where they had been received. All those things happened and yet they still came to vote,” Nessel said during a press conference Friday morning.
According to the state, all four instances occurred in St. Clair Shores in three separate precincts. That’s where Nessel said poll workers called for backup when the electronic pollbook issued a warning stating the voters had already returned their absentee ballots.
She alleges the assistant clerks, after being called for backup, recommended allowing the others to vote and went into the backend of the system to change the status of their absentee ballots to rejected instead of received.
Nessel said the clerks should have known that the absentee ballots were already being counted.
“Once it comes out of the sleeve and it goes into the tabulator, you’re done. There’s no taking that back. So, there’s just no way these assistant clerks could’ve possibly been under the impression that somehow these folks were somehow spoiling their ballots,” Nessel said.
Her office claims the double votes appeared in unofficial election results before being caught by the local St. Clair Shores clerk, though they did not sway any election outcome.
The four residents accused of double voting each face one count for voting absentee and in person and another one of offering to vote more than once. Together, that could lead to a maximum of nine years in prison.
Two of the assistant clerks face charges for falsifying election returns or records, voting absentee and in person, and offering to vote more than once.
A third clerk faces two counts of each of those charges.
The state charges come after Macomb County Prosecutor Pete Lucido had already declined to pursue the case further.
At the time, Lucido told news outlets he believed the voters were trying to spoil their ballot.
“We evaluate cases based on facts. St. Clair Shores elections officials quickly identified the issue, preserved records for review, and reported it promptly. This demonstrates that election safeguards are effective and maintain overall integrity,” Lucido said in an August 29 press release.
But Attorney General Dana Nessel said it’s important to set the record straight regarding election law in Michigan.
“I don’t want people coming in on election day to try to spoil their ballot because they’re like, ‘Oh the prosecutor says I could do that.’ They can’t,” Nessel said.