LANSING — Election security is on the mind of Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, who is pushing back against a House resolution holding her in contempt.
Her message? Protecting elections comes before playing politics.
The Secretary says her office has already provided over 3,300 pages of training documents to the committee — five separate times since January. That includes materials now posted publicly at Michigan.gov/ElectionTransparency.
But she drew a line when it came to internal security protocols, arguing that releasing them could expose the system to tampering, impersonation, or ballot interference, saying in a statement, quote:
“I believe in oversight and transparency. That’s precisely why our department has voluntarily complied with providing thousands of pages of documents used to train and educate our local clerks. However, I also have a duty to protect the security of our elections from politicians seeking information that would enable someone to interfere with the chain of custody of ballots, tamper with election equipment, or impersonate a clerk on Election Day,” end quote.
Benson says she’s still willing to meet — preferably with a third-party legal mediator — to find common ground.