On behalf of the Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans and the Detroit/Downriver chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, filed a motion to intervene  in a case that challenges the relief received in our Michigan Four Pillars case: extending the ballot receipt deadline and allowing ballot collection.

On behalf of A. Philip Randolph Institute and Rise Inc., we filed to intervene as defendants in a lawsuit attempting to initiate a broad voter purge program less than two months before the 2020 election.

Constitutional challenge to two laws in Michigan that make voting more difficult for college students. The first statute required that individuals who registered to vote for the first time by mail or third-party voter registration drive vote in-person. The second statute requires that an individual’s driver’s license address match her voter registration address. After the case was filed, the Secretary of State issued a directive informing elections officials that the statute requiring individuals to vote in-person is invalid. We reached an agreement with the Secretary of State to implement a public education campaign to encourage college student voter registration to help alleviate the confusion and burdens created by the law.

Constitutional challenge to Michigan’s signature match laws, which require election officials to reject absentee applications and ballots if they determine that the signature provided with the applications or ballot does not match the voter’s signature on file with election authorities. We contend that the signature matching process is unconstitutional because the State has not developed any uniform standards or procedures for reviewing signatures, thereby allowing elections officials throughout the state to use arbitrary and diverging criteria; election officials lack sufficient training and skill to accurately compare signatures; and the law does not require election officials to notify voters that their absentee applications or ballots have been rejected, nor does it provide voters with an opportunity to contest a wrongful rejection or cure an alleged mismatch.

Challenge to two Michigan voting restrictions. The first is Michigan’s restriction on the transportation of voters. The second law is Michigan’s restriction on absentee ballot applications which requires an individual that assists another voter with an absentee ballot application to affirm that she did not “solicit or request to return the application,” and prohibits an individual from assisting another voter in returning their application unless the individual is a registered voter in Michigan or a member of the voter’s immediate family or household.

On behalf of the Michigan Alliance for Retired Americans, the Detroit Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, and individual voters, we sued Michigan over its vote by mail restrictions. We ask the state to extend the deadline for when absentee ballots must be received, provide pre-paid postage for vote by mail, and permit third parties to assist voters in submitting their sealed ballots.