The House Oversight Committee voted on Tuesday to officially authorize the committee chair, State Representative Jay DeBoyer (R-Clay Township), to subpoena the Secretary of State’s office, requiring them to share several requested election documents they have refused to hand over to the Legislature for the past five months. The committee’s action followed the Secretary of State’s office refusing to comply with a Monday, April 14^th deadline that DeBoyer provided them to hand over the requested documents. These documents most notably include election training materials for Michigan clerks and their staffs.

“The people’s elected representatives have a responsibility to ensure our elections are administered properly, which makes the Secretary of State’s effort to disguise vital information on our election administration from us worrying,” DeBoyer said. “Michigan’s departments have been allowed to operate without oversight or standards for years. That’s led to terrible results for the people of this state, and it must end now. Just one week after admitting serious failures in our election system, the Secretary of State continues to hide from oversight and refuses to discuss the department’s job performance in public. That’s not good governing, and we can’t let it continue.”

Rep. Rachelle Smit (R-Shelbyville), who chairs the House Election Integrity Committee, testified before the Oversight Committee in early March regarding issues she had faced while trying to obtain election-related materials from the Secretary of State. Following Smit’s testimony, DeBoyer sent a letter to the Secretary of State’s office requesting the missing materials. After the Secretary of State’s office reiterated that they were unwilling to disclose their training materials for Michigan clerks and their staff, DeBoyer provided them on April 4^th with a ten-day deadline to fulfill Smit’s request. Having now failed to meet that deadline, the Secretary of State’s office will be subpoenaed for the requested materials.

“From the beginning of this term, we have made it clear that we are committed to ensuring transparency and accountability to the people of Michigan in all facets of our government, and that includes our electoral process,” DeBoyer said. “While I am disappointed to see the Secretary of State’s office trying to fight that effort, we will not allow them to deprive the people of Michigan from knowing how their public officials are administering their elections. The people and their elected representatives should not be kept in the dark on these matters, and today’s move to approve a subpoena will help correct that.”