ABSENT VOTERS/POLLING PLACES H.B. 4443 (S-1): FLOOR ANALYSIS
House Bill 4443 (Substitute S-1 as reported) Sponsor: Representative Alvin Kukuk House Committee: Local Government Senate Committee: Government Operations
The bill would amend the Michigan Election Law to revise the Election Law’s provisions regarding absent voters, polling places, and precinct inspectors. The bill would define electors in the “armed services”, regarding their and their spouses’ and dependents’ eligibility to receive absent voter ballots; revise current procedures for election clerks regarding the picking up of absent voter ballots from voters who have requested assistance; allow election clerks to use absent voter ballot stock purchased before March 28, 1996, for the remainder of 1996, as long as the ballots contained the required instruction and warnings; specify that the legislative body of a village, township, or city could not designate as a polling place a building owned by a person who established, directed, controlled, or financially supported an independent or political committee, including a subsidiary of a corporation or a labor organization local that established, directed, controlled, or financially supported an independent or political committee; specify that polling places could include a building owned by a nonprofit organization except certain civic leagues, labor, agricultural, or horticultural organizations, or business leagues, chambers of commerce, real estate boards, and boards of trade; allow a board of election commissioners to appoint election inspectors in an election precinct from minor political parties; and specify that a board of election commissioners would have to appoint at least one election inspector from each major political party in each precinct, while maintaining the current requirement that election inspectors be appointed in an equal number, as nearly as possible, from each major political party in each precinct.
MCL 168.662 et al. Legislative Analyst: G. Towne
The bill could result in additional costs to local governments to the extent that additional voters (if any) would qualify for absentee ballots.
Date Completed: 5-10-96 Fiscal Analyst: B. Bowerman
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This analysis was prepared by nonpartisan Senate staff for use by the Senate in its deliberations and does not constitute an official statement of legislative intent.