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Judge Strikes Down Michigan's Primary Records Law

By AAN Staff
march 27, 2008  08:30 am
The judge agreed to overturn the law enabling only the Democratic and Republican parties to obtain lists of people who voted in the state's presidential primary, Metro Times reports. The law had been challenged by a lawsuit from the ACLU of Michigan, which the alt-weekly had joined. "The state is not required to provide the party preference information to any party," the judge wrote. "When it chooses to do so, however, it may not provide the information only to the major political parties." Michigan's elections director says they will comply with the ruling, but will not release the records to anyone, even via the Freedom of Information Act. Metro Times reports the ruling won't have any effect on the results of the primary, but could have some implications were Michigan to have a mail-based "do over" primary in order to seat its Democratic delegates at this summer's convention. "[If] voters would be eligible for re-voting in a Democratic primary only if they voted in the first primary," Metro Times asks, "how would the election directors know if the records weren't released?"
View full article at Metro Times
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