Committee hears claims of inconsistent, missing and altered election data from Michigan Fair Elections Institute

At a House Committee on Election Integrity hearing, Braden Jacobasi and Tim Vetter of the Michigan Fair Elections Institute testified that multiple publicly available election data sets for Michigan contain inconsistencies, missing records and unexplained changes that they say undermine the ability to audit and validate election results.

The presenters told the committee they review local, county and statewide files (including the Qualified Voter File, or QVF) and found differences in precinct-level tabulator totals, voter lists and vote-history records. "There is no single source of truth," Jacobasi said, adding that files on the Secretary of State's website often combine or redact local precinct splits and that those changes can hide anomalies.

The issue matters because, the presenters argued, election systems must be auditable and allow independent researchers and officials to reconcile tabulator counts with voter lists. "Vote history records are like your bank's transaction records. According to state and federal law, they should never change, but they're changing all the time," Vetter said.

Jacobasi described four "pillars" of a world-class system: transparency and accessibility; standardization; validation/auditability; and accountability and security. He said data should be published in standardized, real-time,…