January 15 Primary – update

There’s a bunch of news on the January 15 primary, none of it yet reported in the MSM.  I’ll post just an outline now, with details to follow.

First, they have decided NOT to appeal Judge Edmunds’s decision, but will let it become final.  The deadline for filing an appeal is apparently April 28, but spokespersons for both the Secretary of State and the A.G. said today they won’t file.

Second, PPC filed a FOIA request for the data, which was rejected today.  I’d post the rejection here, but I only have it as a .pdf, and I’m not sufficiently blog-literate.  Maybe one of the people to whom I’ve forwarded it could help me out?

Third, in spite of the claim the Jan. 15 election was a legal nullity, the legislature today finally pushed through the supplemental appropriation to reimburse the local Clerks.  So the election was valid enough to pay for, but not valid enough to release the records.

The net effect is that – unless the courts intervene – the party choice data gathered from the primary will not be released to anyone, not even the two major parties.

The legal theory to which the Secretary of State subscribes seems somewhere between shaky and untenable, but “it is what it is”.  For one thing, if a local Clerk decides to release the data they collected, I simply can’t see any legal obstacle, since all the criminal sanctions in 2007 PA 52 have been struck down.  For another, I can’t see how the courts could uphold their position, given the language of Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act.  (Of course, as the State Supreme Court showed last November, in Grebner v. Land, my predictions aren’t infallible.)

 
Grebner :: January 15 Primary – update
Their best argument pertains to the section quoted below.  Their reading is that MCL 168.495a, which was repealed by the presidential primary statute, is back in force, since the entire statute was struck down.  It’s an interesting idea, but the section only applies to the “voter registration record”, which was (at the time of adoption) a filed cardboard form.  It doesn’t refer to election records, or other places such data might be stored.

Still, it’s a plausible argument – unlike the rest of their response.

168.495a Removal of preference from precinct and master registration file; release of record containing declaration of party preference prohibited.

Sec. 495a.

(1) If an elector declared a party preference or no party preference as previously provided under this act for the purpose of voting in a statewide presidential primary election, a clerk or authorized assistant to the clerk may remove that declaration from the precinct registration file and the master registration file of that elector and the precinct registration list, if applicable.

(2) Beginning on the effective date of the amendatory act that added this sentence, a person making a request under the freedom of information act, Act No. 442 of the Public Acts of 1976, being sections 15.231 to 15.246 of the Michigan Compiled Laws, is not entitled to receive a copy of a portion of a voter registration record that contains a declaration of party preference or no party preference of an elector. Beginning on the effective date of the amendatory act that added this sentence, a clerk or any other person shall not release a copy of a portion of a voter registration record that contains a declaration of party preference or no party preference of an elector.