Michigan House committee hears testimony alleging state voter‑file errors, duplicate votes and missing records

At a hearing of the Michigan House Committee on Election Integrity, Tim Vetter and Braden Jacobasi of the Michigan Fair Elections Institute testified that inconsistencies across local, county and statewide election data files have produced unexplained changes to vote history records, split or reaggregated precinct results and apparent duplicate votes.

Jacobasi, introduced to the committee as a member of the Data Evaluation of Election Processes team at Michigan Fair Elections, summarized the group’s view of a “world class” election data system and said Michigan’s systems fall short. "If somebody offers you half of a file and claims that it's the whole thing, then you think that you're getting something that you're not," Jacobasi said. He added that public records should be “real time records that are accessible to the public at no cost.”

Vetter, who described vote history records as analogous to bank transaction logs, told the committee that vote history entries “should never change” and presented six categories of changes his group has documented, including: vote history records added after county certification, vote method switching (for example from in‑person to absentee) after certification, vote records transferred from one voter ID to another, vote locations moved between jurisdictions, duplicated vote history entries, and vote history records removed. He said the group has tracked both additions and removals of hundreds of thousands of vote history entries dating back to 2020.

The presenters used a randomly selected sample of Livonia precinct results from the 2024 election to illustrate their concerns, saying local tabulator files contained precinct “A” and “B” splits that the secretary of state’s published files combined into a single row. Jacobasi said that merging or reformatting local splits into single precinct rows “makes it more difficult to find” problems at the sub‑precinct level. He showed examples the group interprets as columns being split or reassigned between candidates in state‑level files, and said that, in one instance, totals available at the local level did not match totals published later on the Secretary of State website.

Vetter told the committee the group observed a net statewide vote difference of roughly 1,500 votes between the certified statewide total and the precinct‑level totals published on the secretary of state’s site, and said that net figure may mask far larger, compensating add/remove operations at lower levels. He also described a spike of duplicate votes in the general election period that he said approached or exceeded 120,000 entries before the secretary of state removed those records; he and Jacobasi characterized the secretary of state's later explanation as “just a glitch.”

Presenters described other procedural problems they say impede verification: local clerks do not always receive receipts when they upload QVF data; FOIA requests for election files are sometimes charged large fees and take months to fulfill (presenters cited examples of roughly $600 and waits of six months); and certain fields (for example voting method in voter files and some absentee‑tracking fields) were redacted or split into multiple files in ways that the presenters said hamper analysis.

Jacobasi repeatedly framed the issues as data‑management failures: "We have a multimillion, multibillion dollar system in our election system, and there's no reason why we can't be applying these principles to it," he said, arguing for standardized file formats, naming conventions, headers and real‑time public access. Vetter urged a policy change to require that county certification include uploading a locked list of voters so that certified tabulator counts and pollbook lists can be matched in the QVF.

Committee members asked clarifying questions. Representative Fox noted the presenters’ claimed error rates and asked whether the group had identified who beyond the secretary of state has access to the statewide data; Vetter said the group does not have an explanation for access or manipulation and emphasized the need for an independent audit. Representative Song pressed for specifics about a special election she said was affected and volunteered to work with the presenters offline to examine district changes; she also asked how the improvements could be funded. Representative Wooden asked whether the apparent reaggregation of precinct splits could be explained as simple addition of A and B rows; presenters responded that the state files sometimes show structural changes beyond simple summation.

Tim Vetter said the Michigan Fair Elections Institute and related plaintiffs have pursued civil litigation and have filed complaints with local law enforcement and the FBI; he told the committee the group also sought files and methodologies from MIT and other entities that the group said had not reviewed the same underlying data.

The hearing closed without committee‑level votes on legislation or audits. Committee members said they intended to continue oversight and look for solutions; the record shows the committee adopted the May 20 minutes by unanimous consent at the start of the hearing and later, at adjournment, approved a motion to excuse Representative Hoadley. No committee action directing a formal audit or subpoena was recorded in the transcript.

The presenters asked the committee to consider requiring standard, complete and public reporting of QVF and related files, to require retention and locking of vote history records after certification, and to review FOIA fee practices for election data.

Next steps were not set on the record. The committee chair thanked the presenters and closed the hearing.