Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Elections And Administration topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
County clerk rebukes local official's election comments, changes interim reporting practice
Summary
Muskegon County Clerk Karen Blue and Elections Coordinator Lori Hayes publicly responded to criticisms from Commissioner Hayes Camp about local election administration, saying the county will stop publishing interim results until all precinct returns are received.
Muskegon County Clerk Karen Blue addressed the board on Feb. 18 to reply to statements made by Commissioner Hayes Camp concerning the county’s election administration and results reporting.
Blue said the county ran fair elections and that the county clerk’s office is responsible only for county-run elections functions such as early voting; local city and township clerks administer their own precincts. She said allegations in a published piece by Commissioner Hayes Camp implied impropriety in how results were reported and named county officials; Blue said those claims were inaccurate. Blue said the county provided interim election totals as a courtesy and that, going forward, the county clerk’s office will no longer publish partial results until 100% of precinct results are received to avoid perceived confusion.
Elections Coordinator Lori Hayes described specific issues raised in the record: an August error in which the City of Muskegon mailed incorrect ballots that were voided and reissued within 48 hours; an instance in Norton Shores in which a candidate omission was corrected and affected ballots were voided and reissued; and clerical errors during a recount of a Water Resource Commissioner contest that prevented recounting of several precincts because seal numbers or ballot counts on poll books did not match. Hayes said training will address those clerical problems and that the errors did not deny anyone the opportunity to vote. The elections coordinator said the city clerks and election inspectors are volunteers who should not face harassment for inadvertent mistakes.
Blue said continued public criticism of the clerks and election inspectors risks discouraging election workers from participating and reiterated that mistakes identified were clerical and will be corrected through training.
The commissioners did not take action in the meeting on the matter beyond receiving the report; the clerk’s office announced the procedural change about interim result posting as an administrative step.
