Michigan’s statutory requirement that all absentee ballots be returned by 8 p.m. on Election Day in order to be counted is being challenged in court.
The League of Women Voters, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and former state Democratic Party Chairman Mark Brewer, filed the lawsuit Friday in the Court of Appeals against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson in her official capacity as Michigan’s top elections official.
It claims that a law in place since at least 1929 in Michigan that requires absentee ballots be received by a local clerk’s office by 8 p.m. on Election Day to be counted runs counter to what the lawsuit says is an “unqualified, unconditional state constitutional right for registered voters to vote in all elections by absentee ballot.”
In 2018, no-reason absentee voting passed by state referendum, giving voters the right to cast absentee ballots by mail or in person beginning 40 days before an election. Since regular mail can often take days, the lawsuit says the old rule conflicts with the intention of the state referendum to expand absentee voting.