Michigan officials suspend payments to Tyler as Mitten campaign-finance site struggles

The Michigan Department of State and vendor Tyler Technologies told the Michigan House General Government Subcommittee on May 20 that the newly launched Michigan Transparency Network, known as Mitten, is not meeting usability or performance expectations and that the department has paused additional vendor payments until key problems are fixed.

Tina Anderson, chief of staff for the Michigan Department of State, told lawmakers, “On behalf of Secretary Benson, I'm here to apologize for these difficult experiences.” Anderson said the contract for the Mitten platform allocates $9,000,000 over five years and that the state has spent just over $3,000,000 to date, including about $2,300,000 on initial implementation. She said the department has suspended payment on additional invoices to Tyler “until critical issues have been resolved, and the system's basic functionality is working as intended.”

Why it matters: Michigan law and implementing rules require timely campaign-finance and personal-financial disclosures, and the state phased out an older system (MERT) when Mitten launched. Committee members warned that failures limit public access to filings and asked whether fines, ballot access or other statutory processes could be affected if filings are blocked or unclear.

Officials…