2023 Senate Bill 386

House Fiscal Agency Analysis

Senate Bill 387 (S-1) would amend the Michigan Election Law to do the following: -- Allow a city or township to establish election day vote centers to tabulate ballots cast by electors who registered to vote or updated their voter registration on election day. -- Prescribe requirements for election day vote centers. -- Modify requirements for processing and tabulating absent voter ballots. -- Allow an elector to tabulate the elector's absent voter ballot in person at the elector's polling place or an appropriate early voting site. -- Modify requirements for absent voter counting boards. -- Modify the instructions required to be mailed with absent voter ballots to include instructions on how an elector could cast an absent voter ballot in person. -- Allow a city or township to authorize an absent voter counting board that could only process and tabulate absent voter ballots approved for tabulation and received after 4 PM on the day before an election and before 8 PM on election day. -- Prohibit an individual from taking photographs or audio or video recordings within an absent voter counting place, except in specified circumstances, and prescribe a misdemeanor for a violation. -- Allow a city or township with a population of at least 5,000 to establish an absent voter counting board to process and tabulate absent voter ballots during specific hours on the eight days before election day. -- Prescribe requirements for the processing and tabulation of absent voter ballots during the early voting period. -- Extend, from the Friday immediately before an election to the second Friday before an election, the deadline before which an elector could submit a request that the clerk spoil the elector's absent voter ballot. -- Repeal Sections 14b, 24k, and 767 of the Michigan Election Law, which govern the use of absent voter ballot secrecy envelope containers. Senate Bill 386 would amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to do the following: -- Remove a provision specifying that disclosing election results or how a ballot was voted is a felony. -- Update the MCL reference for the felony of disclosing how a ballot was voted or disclosing election results early before polls are closed.