On Friday, legal counsel for the Michigan House of Representatives sent a letter to Michigan Department of Attorney General (MDAG) inviting the Michigan Department of State (MDOS) to meet in-person and demonstrate in private why they believe they are unable to disclose all unredacted election training materials requested of them. This letter follows months of back and forth between MDOS and the Legislature during which MDOS has refused to hand over the election training materials for local clerks supposedly in the name of protecting confidential information. State Reps. Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Township) and Rachelle Smit (R-Shelbyville) issued the following statement on the matter:

            “The Secretary of State’s office should look at our invitation as us giving them the benefit of the doubt for their frankly appalling lack of transparency. We are handing them the opportunity to come and demonstrate to us that their claims of confidentiality are truthful. If they actually have confidential materials that cannot, for whatever reason, be disclosed to legislators, they should be able to show us that in a private setting.

            “When we were clerks no more than three years ago, we could see every piece of the election training materials that Jocelyn Benson is now hiding from us. Her refusal now to hand over this information prompts the question: is it because we are no longer clerks, or is it because we are now legislators trying to hold her accountable? Her department will have the chance to prove to us that it’s the former and not the latter by sitting down with us in private and showing us why this allegedly sensitive information must be kept confidential.”

MDOS earlier this week defied a subpoena issued by DeBoyer for the remaining undisclosed election training materials. This past Tuesday was the deadline that DeBoyer provided the department to hand over the complete, unredacted materials, but they still failed to comply and released only a few extra pieces of partly redacted information.

Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson issued a statement that same day saying she “upheld her obligation to protect sensitive information related to election security” by withholding documents that would allow individuals to interfere with future elections. The withheld information is comprised of materials that DeBoyer and Smit, as former clerks, both would have had access to only three years ago.

The letter sent to MDAG provides the department with a deadline of 11:00am on Thursday, May 22 to respond. Despite suggesting a confidential joint redaction process whereby representatives of MDOS and the Michigan House meet and agree upon what materials should be protected from public disclosure, the letter maintains that MDOS still has a legal responsibility to fully comply with DeBoyer’s subpoena.