LANSING, MI – With her fellow Democrats now controlling the legislature, Jocelyn Benson is dreaming bigger.
Michigan’s secretary of state and about 20 Democratic lawmakers on Tuesday laid out their vision for the future of Michigan elections: more funding, protecting poll workers and punishing lies and deceit about the election process that have haunted the state post-2020.
“This is policies that just make our democracy work better,” Benson said, and are necessary for this “critical moment in the history of our democracy.”
Upcoming bills, Senate elections committee chair Jeremy Moss, D-Southfield, said, will “build on those successes” of high voter turnout, secure elections and Proposal 2′s expansion of voting rights and access.
Protecting election workers and officials
Election administrators since 2020 have faced “an unprecedented wave” of harassment and threats, Benson said, putting stress on their work and hurting efforts to recruit poll workers.
She blamed those threats on the election denial movement spurred by former President Donald Trump’s false claims about his loss in 2020.
The secretary announced upcoming legislation that “explicitly prohibits and increases the penalties for threatening, harassing or doxing any election official or worker in any way or pressuring them to break the law.”
During a recount in December, for example, some conservative poll challengers reportedly accused election workers of breaking the law and threatened them with prosecution. And...
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