The Michigan Bureau of Elections has introduced a regulation enabling Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson to systematically clean up the state’s voter database by removing outdated registrations.
This regulation empowers Benson to eliminate voter registrations that have been inactive for over two decades. Affected individuals will be notified and given two federal election cycles to confirm their registration or cast a vote before their registration is canceled.
In a video message, Benson explained the significance of the new rule, stating, “Many people who are registered choose not to vote, sometimes for several election cycles. In every election, a few thousand of these inactive voters do show up to vote for the first time in years. But others have moved away or passed away, and despite our repeated attempts to change Michigan law, we just didn’t have the legal tools to cancel those dormant, inactive records.”
Since 2019, Benson’s office has identified more than 2.1 million inactive voters, cancelling 1.5 million registrations and marking an additional 600,000 as inactive.
Benson emphasized that this rule reflects a balance between maintaining active voter participation and accurate voter rolls. “Canceling old registrations isn’t the only success story here,” she noted. “Since I took office, over 2.4 million eligible Michiganders have registered to vote. That means we’re succeeding on both fronts, consistently adding new registered voters in accordance with the law, while taking outdated registrations off the books with a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.”
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