The Michigan Secretary of State announced the rollout of new security procedures for the 2018 election.
Officials with the Secretary of State say Michigan will begin using ballot validation, in which, after each election, officials count ballots to make sure the number matches the number of votes recorded by the machines.
Fred Woodhams is with the Michigan Secretary of State. He said starting in May, precincts selected for random audits will also have to count their ballots.
“Some other states are experimenting with different methods of post-election audits. This is a randomly selected audit based on the size of a county. We’ll do about 300 precincts out of the 4-800 statewide after a general election.”
Woodhams said the state also invested 40 million dollars in new ballot machines for the August election.
In February, the Center for American Progress released a report on the security procedures of each state and gave Michigan a ‘C’ grade, stating the state’s election audits weren’t robust enough.
Danielle Root is with the Center for American Progress, which recently released a report on election security. She said Michigan’s use of paper ballots is a good thing, but the state still needs to do more.
“So, unfortunately, Michigan is also a state that does not require robust post-election audits. This procedural review only really looks at whether the machines worked correctly, it doesn’t look as to whether the elections were even reported right.’
Root said Michigan doesn’t have a requirement that the audit is binding on election outcomes - meaning if the audit shows a different outcome, it does not necessarily change the declared election winner.
Woodhams, with the Secretary of State’s office, said there has not been a problem with Michigan elections, but this will give residents more peace of mind.