New Statement Required on Affidavit of Identity

At the end of 2018 the Legislature amended MCL 168.558 to require a statement that “the candidate meets the constitutional and statutory qualifications for the office sought”  to the Affidavit of Identity.  We have updated the form on our website to include this statement.  You should destroy all other Affidavits and only provide this form to candidates wishing to file as a candidate in 2019.

The amendment also made changes to what information is now required to be provided on the form.  The Affidavit of Identity must contain:

• The candidate’s name
• The candidate’s residential address
• A statement that the candidate is a citizen of the United States
• A statement that the candidate meets the constitutional and statutory qualifications for the office sought
• The manner in which the candidate wishes to have his or name appear on the ballot

The omission of any of these items from an Affidavit of Identity is a fatal defect and the candidate should not be certified to the ballot.

Please note that the amendment to this section removed the requirements that the ward and precinct where registered and the candidate’s number of years of residence in the state and county be provided.

The forms committee will be reviewing the Affidavit of Identity form and recommending changes.  Once this is done, we will ask vendors to produce updated forms.  Until that time, please do not use or purchase stock that does not include the newly required statement, and only provide a copy printed from our website.  This is important because providing the old form could place a candidate in jeopardy of not being certified to the ballot based on an incomplete Affidavit of Identity.

We understand that some of you with an August Primary election have probably already provided the old form.  Please provide an updated form to those candidates.  If someone has already filed with you, please ask that candidate to file an amended Affidavit of Identity prior to the filing deadline.

Submit May Ballot Proofs to the Bureau of Elections

Counties please forward a copy of your ballot proofs to the Bureau prior to production in PDF format. Bureau staff will review all ballots to ensure that they conform to the current ballot production standards.

Submit all proofs by email to the attention of Carol Pierce at piercec1@michigan.gov. Please include "Ballot Proofs" and the name of your county in the subject line of your email submission. If corrections are needed or any changes are made to the ballots following submission and/or approval, the PDFs must be re-submitted.

Congrats to the City of Rochester Hills!

The City of Rochester Hills won the US Election Assistance Commission (EAC) 2018 Clearinghouse Award for its Election Day Precinct Support Portal which allowed precinct workers to submit requests or questions via a smart phone or tablet using a simple Google Form.

Congratulations to Clerk Tina Barton and her staff on this great honor!

New BOE Phone Numbers

As a reminder, the Michigan Department of State has switched to a new telephone service provider. As a result, the phone numbers for the Election Liaison Section Line (line to Election Specialists) and the BOE Fax number are changing.

The Michigan Bureau of Elections Contact Information page has been updated to reflect the changes.

Please update your speed dials or saved contacts to these new numbers. The old numbers will no longer work in mid-March.

BOE Question of the Week:

I need to update the job title or email address on my eLearning Center account.  How do I do that? 

Answer:  The email address, job title, and jurisdiction are fields that you cannot update on your own.  To change these fields, just fill out the Account Request form and we'll do it for you.

Have a question you'd  like to see
in the Question of the Week?  Send it to elections@michigan.gov.